


The One Thing I Should Have Told You

by wherethefrickismyblackwidowmovie



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Apologies, Arguments, Bottom Steve Rogers, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Fix-It, Complicated Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Grief/Mourning, Hospitalization, M/M, Mutual Pining, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Poisoning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Hatred, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, mentions of suicidal ideation, no time travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-05-07 15:54:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherethefrickismyblackwidowmovie/pseuds/wherethefrickismyblackwidowmovie
Summary: In the middle of Civil War, Tony is warned about an attempt on Steve’s life.-“The war was killing me, Steve,” Tony said, afraid to look at his face. The silence that followed was somehow worse.“Looks like it killed a little bit of both of us.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To me, the Civil War comics were about the lengths people with good intentions will go to in order to do the things they believe in, only to see their values compromised in the process. So this fic doesn’t take one side but acknowledges the problems with government interference/control as well as problems with lack of regulations that are supposed to protect civilians. And all of this comes into this story, but it takes a backseat to fixing the interpersonal relationships. People who love each other aren't always nice to each other, so when I write characters lashing out, it isn’t meant to paint those characters in a bad light, just to try to realistically portray how people act under pressure. If any of that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, please skip this one.
> 
> About the timeline: I started writing this after I read Civil War, and before Captain America: Civil War came out. (Then I worked on it a bit after I saw the movie, and THEN I forgot about it for literally years lolol I judge myself). So it’s a mix of MCU characters and comic characters, more or less taking place in the aftermath of the Civil War of the comics but changed a bit, and featuring a number of comics quotes and a few movie quotes (shout-out to Endgame). If you haven't read the comics, no worries. Unlike the MCU Civil War, Tony and Steve’s disagreement doesn't revolve around Bucky. Civil War began when a young superpowered kid accidentally blew up a school. It dealt with the Superhuman Registration Act (SRA) and not the Accords. Since I began writing this before CACW came out that's true of this fic as well. As in the comics, Carol is already an Avengers and is friends with Tony, but I also am not trying to follow the comics plotlines exactly, and this is still connected to the MCU.
> 
> Some relevant spoilers about the way Civil War ends in the comics: Steve gives himself up, realizing civilians are being put in danger. On the steps of the courthouse, he is assassinated. [Tony mourns over his body. ](https://static.tumblr.com/k6vb0rs/2WEnlkof3/hxrxu.jpg)
> 
> Wanda and Pietro joining HYDRA in the MCU was bad and I ignore it.
> 
> One minor character is not tagged to avoid spoilers for this fic.

The factory was deserted except for the guards she had already eliminated. These weren’t Tony’s people, Wanda realized, looking down at one man she had knocked unconscious with a dart of red magic. If they were they would have been paid better, she thought, breathing out a humorless laugh. Of all the things Tony Stark was, he wasn’t stingy with his money. She could tell by the simple uniform and cheap shoes that these guys were working for someone else. That and the fact that something about the darkened factory made the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. What was going on here?

She’d thought she had found on one of the government’s storage facilities for Stark equipment, and so she had gone alone, knowing she could take out any opposition she met. There were crates stacked high along the wall, like she’d expected. She passed by them, drawn to the end of the room, and stopped short.

This wasn’t a storage facility. It was a lab.

She stood before the table. The lab had been cleaned out. That meant someone had made it out before she stopped them. Wanda cursed under her breath. There was a safe, still locked. She crossed to it, hesitated. Then, reaching out her hand, a whisp of red wrapped around the lock and it sprang open.

She gasped in horror but the breath died as she opened her mouth. Reaching as far as she could into the box, she could sense the memories and thoughts of the men who had worked in this lab, on this single project, floating like spiderwebs in the air, individual threads all leading to one secret goal. And she saw how they wanted it all to end.

With the last of her energy, she balled a red mass of energy in her hands. As she collapsed to her knees, she raised her arms and sent the energy coursing upwards through the ceiling, surging and crackling, and screamed as the last of the energy sapped from her and she fell unconscious on the floor.

\--

Steve was handcuffed and pushed out of the car. He didn’t struggle, just looked straight ahead with a grim expression as he walked up the steps. He had knowingly turned himself over to these people, these faceless men in black. For a split second, there was hesitation between the guards—some sort of communication between them as they stepped back from him and then a gunshot sent Steve staggering forward onto the stone steps. Blood was pooling under him—more and more blood. A surge of people gathered around him, and one of the guards turned him onto his back and felt his neck—no pulse. He lay there still and cold and bloody. There was blood all around him, bright red. Blood on his mouth.

There was so much red and Tony sat up, breathing hard. It was a dream, he reminded himself, it was just a dream. He was still seeing red. His arms were shaking as he pushed down the sheet drenched in his sweat and got unsteadily to his feet. He staggered to the bathroom and collapsed against the sink without turning on the light, and felt tears streaming down his face.

He didn’t talk to anyone about the dream. Couldn't bear to. Not yet.

\--

Rhodey and Natasha came in and collapsed on the sofas and Tony got to his feet and ran into the living room. It had been another late night mission. They had learned the hard way that they had to take turns fighting these battles.

“You guys okay?”

Rhodey was still wearing his armor, but he had lifted the face plate and Tony could see that he was pretty bunged up. He looked at Natasha. She was silent, her eyes empty and Tony looked away quickly, knowing that she had probably fought with Barton. It had to be terrible that this had torn them apart too. Tony felt his own chest tighten. It had come between friends and siblings, so why not lovers?

“What happened?”

Rhodey sighed. “We engaged Barton, the Winter Soldier and Falcon.” He glanced up at Tony. “Didn’t see Steve.”

“We were outgunned,” Natasha added and Tony almost jumped. “It’s weird,” she continued, in a pensive voice, “Clint usually pairs up with Wanda, but I guess they’re switching their teams.”

“Huh?”

Natasha’s eyes flickered up to Tony. “Ever since Ultron, he kind of took her under his arm. I just noticed that she wasn’t there, that’s all.”

Something lurched in Tony’s stomach. He felt like the floor had been taken out from under him. “I mean, we do that, right? I usually pair up with Vision but we work great too—” he motioned between himself and Rhodey “—and you and the kid made a great team when we need you to.”

Natasha shrugged. “Yeah, probably nothing to it.” She looked closely at Tony, then stood. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, guys. Wake me up if anything happens.”

“Don’t wake _me_ up, I don’t care if Cap’s entire forces are attacking us. Make Carol or Jan take care of it. I’m beat,” Rhodey joked and Natasha gave a hollow laugh as she walked out of the room. He looked up at Tony, and Tony saw how tired he looked.

“Hey buddy, let’s get you out of that suit. You need to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey sighed. “You don’t look too great either, you know.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Fuck you man.” He knew it was true. He didn’t remember the last time he had gotten a full night’s sleep, and nightmares were just the start.

Rhodey laughed and got out of the suit with a groan.

“I’ll fix this up by the morning, just in case, you know…we get any surprises.”

Rhodey nodded. “Thanks. See if you can get some sleep after that though, alright?”

Tony grinned. “Alright.” He turned away from Rhodey and let his smile disappear. Thank God Rhodey didn’t know he’d started drinking again. He wasn’t drinking that often, it’s just that he had, well, started. Carol probably knew though. Carol always knew.

It’d been after Pepper left him, Tony remembered. She’d left before he really became a wreck. He was grateful for that.

Rhodey disappeared down the hall and Tony turned to look after him, feeling his heart wrench in his chest. At least he hadn’t driven away all his friends. Rhodey would probably never really know how much Tony needed him there.

Tony looked down at the suit in his hands, and for a moment he was taken back to before the Superhuman Registration Act, before any of this had ever happened. What had gone so wrong? Well, that wasn’t a question he could answer now.

By the time he was finished with the suit it was after 2 A.M. and he collapsed over the table and the horrible unseated feeling came rushing back. He felt sick to his stomach. Looking around frantically for something else to work on, his eyes fell upon the couch on the other side of his lab. This was not the time, he thought with a groan. He was doing everything in his power _not_ to think about Steve, but how could he when that damn couch was sitting right there?

They had always argued, but back then they were teammates and it didn’t matter. He didn’t know when it happened, but they had become friends, too. Steve never asked if he could come into the lab with his sketchbook, he just did. He’d been so withdrawn those first few years out of the ice, but seemed to find comfort in the routine they’d created. Tony had only ever used the couch to hold extra parts for his suit and a thousand other projects, so of course he had to clear it off. Steve would sit there and watch Tony work. And somewhere along the line, strange as it was, Steve had changed from his teammate to his friend. It got to be comfortable, and normal, and something more than Tony was willing to admit to himself, until it…just stopped.

It had felt like their home.

Now it was empty. Tony got up and slumped down into the couch with a drink. It was moments like this, when he was tired and looking into the bottom of a glass and couldn’t help himself, that he missed Steve the most. And he hated it, and he hated himself for it.

He huddled down against the couch as if he could bury his feelings in it. The unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach was worse now, and he turned onto his side and breathed raggedly. A panic attack, now, really? He fumbled for his phone, hesitated for a moment, and then dialed.

It was immediately picked up, but the other end was silent, and Tony heard his heart throbbing in his ears. It was the first time he’d called—Steve hadn’t even wanted to talk to Tony in person before this all escalated. He had never given Tony a chance. There had been no point in phone calls.

“Steve?”

“What is it?” His voice was calm, distant, but there was an undercurrent of anger. That was normal.

“Uhhh…quick question, how’s Wanda?”

“Is that some sort of joke?” Steve spat back at him and Tony jumped at the venom in his voice.

“No, what are you talking about? Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

There was a pause and then Steve said, “She’s missing.”

Tony felt hot and cold, pins and needles like he was going to faint. He lay down quickly with head against the arm of the couch and closed his eyes. “No, no, that’s not—what do you mean, missing?”

“You should know, since I can’t think of anyone besides you who would take her.”

Anger flared in Tony’s chest, pulling him back to full consciousness. Is that why Steve picked up? “I didn’t kidnap her.”

“Really? Because that sounds an awful lot like something you’d do.” Steve wasn’t disguising his anger anymore.

“Steve,” Tony pleaded, “I know…how it is, but it’s just that I _didn’t_ do it, okay?”

“Then why did you call about her?”

“I—”

“You’re wasting my time, Stark.”

 _He used to call me Tony,_ Tony thought and rubbed his face in his hands, trying to shake the thought away, but it was so horrible he didn’t think he could focus on anything else.

“Steve,” Tony begged, his voice breaking a little, and something in his voice must have alerted Steve that something was wrong because he didn’t hang up. There was a silence. Tony swallowed. “The same people who took Wanda, they’re gonna try to kill you—I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I just know they’re going to and you’ve gotta—you can’t—I don’t know how—”

“We’re fighting a war, Stark,” Steve said, and he sounded genuinely confused. “People have been trying to kill me since I made it clear that I value freedom over _security_ , and since when do you care?”

“ _What—_ ”

That’s when he hung up.

Tony gritted his teeth and threw his phone on the floor, sitting up straighter. There had been so much red in his dream. A stream of scarlet. It had to be Wanda.

\--

There had been so many battles, Tony had lost count at this point. It was familiar now, seeing Steve like this. What wasn’t familiar was how badly he was losing this time around.

Steve blocked the repulsor blast with his shield and then slammed it into Tony, knocking him backwards. This time when Tony fell and tried to get up, he couldn’t, and Steve was on top of him raising his fist.

The punch broke his faceplate.

All of the battles had come down to this one. They were all fighting this time, not split up into teams, not being careful and conserving their energy. It was all or nothing—it couldn’t go on much longer anyway, it just couldn’t. Or maybe Tony just didn’t know if he could.

He sent a blast of energy up at Steve but Steve rolled out of the way and then slammed him back down. Tony’s suit sparked and crackled. POWER LOW.

“Finish it.” He gripped Steve by the shoulders and Steve shook him off roughly.

“Fight back, Stark,” Steve hissed between his teeth, raising his fist again.

Tony coughed, tasting blood. “I can’t,” he gasped. Steve was poised above him, face smudged with dirt and blood, fist still raised. He was so close Tony could see the beads of sweet on his brow, but so far away across the gulf of anger and hurt between them. “Kill me,” Tony said in a gasp, but Steve wasn’t listening to him anymore. He was looking around them, at the fires and crumbled buildings.

Cap’s forces were getting the better of Tony’s. It was taking both Clint and Bucky to beat Natasha. There was a gash on Sam’s forehead, but he had trapped Vision and was holding him back. Rhodey was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the kid, but he never was easy to spot. Carol was still facing off against T’Challa and he couldn’t find Jan in the crowd. And everywhere, utter destruction--overturned cars, sparking electricity and rubble.

And there were civilians, Tony realized through a haze. Where had they come from? He heard yelling and then a swarm of men converged around Steve and grabbed him by the arms. Steve tried to throw them off, but these were just regular men, and Tony realized Steve was trying not to hurt them. They had no armor, no weapons. Steve stared down at Tony, his jaw set, his chest heaving, and then abruptly his shoulders dropped and he stood straighter as if a sudden calm had come over him. He turned and Tony saw that the men had tied his hands behind his back.

“Cap, what are you _doing_?” Clint yelled. “They’ll throw us in jail if you surrender!”

Steve didn’t answer.

Sam flew over and dropped directly in front of Steve, blocking his way. “What the hell is going on? We were _beating_ them, man. We were _winning_ back there.”

Steve shook his head. “Not if we’re putting innocent lives in danger. That’s not what I wanted when I started this. They’re the ones we’re trying to protect, Sam.”

Tony blacked out as he saw Steve being led away by the police.

\--

He woke up slowly, tugging at something on his wrist. His whole body hurt in ways he had never thought possible. Opening his eyes, Tony realized it was an IV. He was in the hospital. _Fuck fuck fuck_. He sat up slowly, wincing, and fumbled for his phone. Where the hell was everyone? Panic settled back into his stomach.

Rhodey opened the door. “Glad to see you’re awake.” He shook his head, silent for a moment. "You had me really worried."

“I'm okay, buddy. How long have I been _not_ awake?”

“Three days.”

Tony jerked, sending the machines around him beeping. “What the HELL?”

Rhodey made a “you know that’s not _my_ fault” face.

“What happened?”

Rhodey handed him something—oh good, his phone—and then looked down. “It’s over, Tony.”

He left without saying anything else.

Tony quickly opened his phone and looked at the news.

 _Captain America surrenders._ They were going to take him to court. They had won. So why did Tony feel so hollow? He scrolled down and stopped cold. There was a picture of the court, the steps...he recognized it. Above it read the title “ _Captain America to be tried Thursday_.”

They were going to kill Steve today.

\--

He ripped the IV from his hand and staggered to his feet, almost doubling over in pain. The Iron Man armor crashed through the wall and he was in it in a second, the faceplate snapping down and repulsors flaring as he flew out of the hole in the hospital wall.

“I’ll pay for that later.”

He zoomed up past the skyrises until he could see the city spread out below him, and then flew in the direction of the court house, ignoring the throbbing pain in his bruised limbs. It was grey and oppressively hot for the end of summer, and up here he should’ve been pleasantly cool, but he was sweating like mad.

He stopped abruptly high up over the steps of the courthouse. Large marble columns flanked the dark mouth of the building. There was no one on the steps. Was he too late? No, that wasn’t possible.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a black car escorted by armored government vehicles. They stopped in front of the steps. Time slowed down and Tony’s blood ran cold as Steve got out of the car and started up towards the building. Then everything snapped into overdrive.

At some point he saw the guard’s signal and he put 100% into the repulsors. He wasn’t sure what happened first. He was at Steve’s side in an instant, shielding his body with the armor. The gunshot struck and ricocheted off the armor and then he turned to see one of the guards raise his gun and point it directly at them. He grabbed Steve with one arm and turned to block him with his body, sent a repulsor blast at the guard, but not before he released the fatal shot.

Steve went limp. Tony turned to look at him and that awful second seemed to be an eternity. His eyes were still open. He looked at Tony for a moment that seemed to drag until he slowly collapsed against the stone steps. There was blood flowing from his side where the bullet had struck him.

After that, the security forces had appeared, Tony remembered, but not in time to catch the shooter. Steve was carried away. Tony stood in shock, unable to move.

At some point after that, he had called Helen Cho.

\--

The government got the body, of course. Government property, the serum, whatever. But they couldn’t really stop Tony from seeing him.

Steve was still in his uniform, bloodied, his shield tossed across his chest. Tony sat for hours next to him before even moving. He was numb down to the very core. He stared at Steve’s lifeless body, trying to understand what had happened, how he had let it happen. The air around Steve seemed to pulse. This wasn’t real. This was a nightmare.

In a rush he took off his helmet and crumpled against the edge of the table, and the tears finally streamed down his face. It was almost a relief. His hands shook on the side of the table. “After everything I’ve done, after everything we’ve been through together, not…”

He’d missed Steve for so long. The thought that this was just the beginning of missing him went straight through him, taking the life out of him.

He stared at Steve’s face as if he could will him alive again. “I thought I knew what the worst thing would be,” he reasoned, “I thought I’d be ready. For the end. And now the worst thing has happened. The thing I can’t live with…has happened.” The tears drying on his cheeks felt cold.

“And for all our back and forth—and all the things we’ve said and done to each other…for all the hard questions I’ve had to ask, and terrible lies I’ve had to tell…there’s one thing that I’ll never be able to tell anyone now. Not my friends or my co-workers or my president…the one thing. The one thing I should have told you. But now I can’t.”

Tony fell silent. He realized he’d never feel about anyone the way he felt about Steve—he couldn’t. There just wasn’t any energy left in him to love someone like that, and now he didnt feel anything, just scar tissue toughening around his heart. For all the battles they’d fought and the arguments they’d had, Steve was never the enemy. If he had been an enemy it would’ve been easy to fight him, even to hate him. Instead, it was like a piece of his own heart had been torn out and could never be put back in.

Tony let out a bitter laugh that sounded more like a sob and felt the coldness settle into his bones.

It wasn’t worth it.

\--

She had flown to New York immediately, a whole fourteen hours from Seoul. Tony didn’t remember how much money he had promised her but it had been a lot. He had almost forgotten about calling her until she appeared in the dark room and taken his body. It was an afterthought. Tony had already given up.

“He’s alive.”

Tony nearly had a heart attack, jumping out of his chair. Helen Cho stood in the doorway to the hospital room.

“I don’t know if he’ll make it, but he’s alive,” she said. “It’s lucky you got there when you did to shield him. The bullet only grazed his side.”

Tony rubbed his face with his hands. None of this fucking made sense. Then this wouldn’t have happened unless… “Poison.”

Helen nodded. “If the bullet had struck his abdomen, he would have died instantly. As it is, the amount of poison from the bullet wound nearly killed him. He has no pulse. I’m not surprised they pronounced him dead. But after I analyzed the poison I found that it had anti-metabolic effects. They couldn’t neutralize the serum’s effects entirely, but they could weaken it. The poison only worked because it directly attacked the serum and his immune system.”

Tony nodded, and tried to take a deep breath. “Okay.” This was starting to sound like the poison had been engineered specifically to kill Steve. He remembered the shooter, masked, dressed like any other member of law enforcement, the other guards stepping out of the way to give him a clear shot.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Helen continued. “His body completely shut down, but it’s still fighting the poison. It’s my hope that I can strengthen his immune system enough that he can fight it on his own.”

Tony’s head swam as he stared at the doctor, clean and petite in her hospital dress. He swallowed, still processing all this new information, residual panic and grief still coursing through his body as he tried not to tremble from the sheer effort of keeping it together.

He managed to say, “Can I see him?”

\--

Steve looked small on the hospital bed, the breathing apparatus, IV and other machines dwarfing him and casting a faint shadow over his face. His eyes were closed. His chest rose and fell slowly, but just that little movement was enough to make Tony's heart ache with relief so strong he wanted to yell.

“I have a sample of the poison like you asked.”

Tony looked up and stood to accept the vile from Helen. “Thanks.” He turned towards the door.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do with that, but be careful. If exposed to air for enough time, it evaporates. If you inhale the fumes, it could make you very sick, even knock you out.”

“I’ll be careful.” He turned back suddenly and sat beside the hospital bed. What if this was the last time?

He took Steve’s hand carefully. It was warmer than Tony had expected. Tony swallowed as he studied Steve’s face. Not sure if it was directed to Helen or Steve, he said, “I know you can…”

_You’ve got to make it._

With that, he got up and left the hospital.

\--

When he was finished working he suited up. The analysis of the poison had been successful. After that, it was just a matter of tracking sales of its components and matching them with sales of the materials used to make the bullet that had been left on the courthouse steps. There weren’t a lot of substances that could pierce bullet-proof armor. Black market deals of vibranium used to be Tony’s area, so that wasn’t a problem.

The warehouse the search led him too was empty on the first infrared scan, but on the second, he saw a faint signal near the northeast side.

The inside of the building was dark, and he could see the signs of a firefight on the walls. He was getting closer. He ran down a corridor into a larger storage room, and saw her, slumped on the floor by the far wall.

It was Wanda. She was unconscious, but alive.

\--

Tony had just arrived back at the hospital with Wanda in his arms when Pepper appeared down the hallway. It was the first time he had seen her in a long time—since they had ended it, he realized. He came to meet her, lifting the faceplate, and she put a hand on his arm gently. “I heard what happened. I came right away.”

Helen showed him to a room next to Steve’s and he set Wanda down on the bed. Helen injected something into Wanda’s arm and the young woman sat up breathing heavily. Pepper hovered in the doorway.

“Where—where am I?” Wanda gasped.

“Hospital. You’re safe,” Tony said.

Wanda looked at him. “Steve, is he—”

“I got your warning,” Tony blurted out, and Pepper and Helen glanced at each other in confusion.

“He’s stable,” Helen added. “I can’t say for certain, but there’s some hope he will recover.”

The color drained from Wanda’s face and she slumped back into the bed.

“I did everything I could,” Tony said, pleading, trying to convince himself as much as her. “I swear to God, I—”

“I wonder why it went to you,” Wanda murmured and Tony stopped.

“What?”

“My vision. I didn’t send it to you. I just…sent it.”

“I didn’t know you could do that from--from far away.”

Wanda smiled slightly. “Neither did I. But I had to do it, so…I did it.” She looked down at her hands.

“Maybe because I was closer to where you were,” Tony wondered out loud. He was sure if Wanda had been able to control who she sent the vision to, she would’ve picked someone like Sam or Bucky. Someone Steve trusted.

“Maybe it’s better this way,” Wanda mused, looking up at Tony. “You saved my brother, I save yours.”

It had been after they fought Ultron. The flight to Korea had been long. Tony had been the only one who thought it was a good idea. Pietro had been dead, but acceptance was never Tony’s strong suit.

“Steve is…he’s not really like a brother to me,” Tony replied and Wanda’s brows furrowed.

“Just because you fight doesn’t mean you are not brothers. I...would know.” She looked down briefly and then back up at Tony. “How is…how is Pietro? Does he hate me?” she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears.

Tony quickly put his hand on Wanda’s shoulder. “No, no. He could never—he’s going to be here any second,” he said with a smile. “You know how he is.”

Wanda began laughing through her tears.

\--

Tony didn’t realize he hadn’t taken off his suit until Pepper reminded him. They were waiting outside Steve’s room. Pepper tried to stifle her gasp when she saw all the scrapes and bruises and Tony wished for the hundredth time she didn’t have to see him like this. It had been bad enough when they were together. _“I don’t want to watch you kill yourself, Tony,”_ Pepper had said. _“I can’t do this if this is going to be our life together...”_

“You need medical attention,” she whispered, her hand light on his shoulder, and he just crumpled beneath it.

“I can’t, not when…” he gestured at the door in front of them.

“He’ll be okay,” Pepper murmured.

Tony looked down. “He has to be.”

And then he was holding his head in his hands, crying silently, and Pepper was holding him—sweet, kindhearted, forgiving Pepper who still somehow loved him after all this.

\--

Pietro came in a flash to Wanda’s room and disappeared inside. Vision stood reluctantly by the door until Pepper urged him to go inside.

“Are you sure she’ll want to see me?”

“Just go,” Pepper had pushed him with a small smile.

It was getting late.

“Sleep, Tony,” Rhodey reminded him, and Tony looked up. Rhodey motioned with his head to Pepper, who stood behind him, a worried expression badly disguised on her face.

“We’re going to head out. Do you want to come with us?”

Tony shook his head. Rhodey exchanged a glance with Pepper and then said, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” He put a hand on Tony’s shoulder and squeezed it.

Tony spent the night sitting beside Steve’s bed, and finally fell into a fitful sleep, collapsed on the arm of the chair.

\--

“I’m sorry, but I need the room,” Helen murmured, and Tony snapped awake.

“Right, sorry.” He stole a glance at Steve’s pale face and stepped out into the hallway. Natasha appeared around the corner and rushed up to him. “Bad timing, doctor’s in,” Tony explained, and Natasha sat down on the bench and looked hard at the door.

“How bad is it?” she said in a low voice.

“Uhhh, bad,” Tony heard himself say, too lightly. “Pretty fucking bad.”

Natasha looked at him with hooded eyes, and Tony wondered how long she had gone without sleep.

“I know you were the one who paid the bail,” she said. “Although T’Challa didn’t need it since he has diplomatic immunity.”

Tony let out a humorless laugh. “Like that’ll do any good. They’ll be arrested again in no time.”

“You’d be surprised,” Natasha said, with the hint of a sad smile. “Ever since…” she motioned to the door, “this happened, it looks like it’s going to be hard for the government to press charges. They don’t want any more violence, and if Captain America becomes a martyr there’s going to be no end.”

“Did…you go to see him?” Tony knew she would be worried about Barton.

Natasha nodded. “Just enough to know he was okay—that they were all okay.” She glanced at Tony. “They didn’t see me though,” she said, her lips turning up at the corner in a sad smile, “I’m not ready for that quite yet.”

Natasha’s brow drew down as she looked down at her hands. Tony knew she had been trying to fix her mistakes, doing what she thought was the right thing. And now they were on the other side, looking back. Regret was too weak a word for what Tony and Natasha felt, not when they had fought for redemption for so long just to see everything they had wanted fall apart. What did they say again? The road to hell was paved with good intentions. How come the better his intentions, the more he tried to take responsibility, the worse it all got?

There was no need to say anything as they waited to see whether their mistakes would cost Steve his life.

\--

Natasha jumped to her feet at the sound of footsteps, and Tony stood stiffly as Clint, Sam and Bucky walked towards them down the hospital corridor. God, they weren’t ready for this, he wasn’t ready for this.

Sam walked directly to him and Tony half expected him to punch him hard across the face. Instead, Sam stopped in front of him and nodded.

“You saved his life,” he said, his voice almost catching in his throat. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Bucky stood behind Sam silently, his expression less friendly. Tony looked away. “Great job I did of that.”

Sam and Bucky exchanged a glance and Bucky turned away to hide his face, pacing back and forth in front of the door.

Clint looked hesitantly at Natasha.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice husky like he'd been crying.

Natasha looked at him in confusion. “I’m not hurt, Clint. Are…are you?”

She lifted a hand hesitantly. Clint slowly reached out to take it, and then placed his other hand around it, his shoulders slumping down.

“It’s over, Nat,” he whispered.

Tony watched a fragile bittersweet smile form on Natasha’s lips and then fade away as she held Clint's hand.

\--

It was a long wait in front of the door. Clint had gone to see Wanda. Bucky kept pacing back and forth, although the news about Wanda had calmed him slightly—she had been missing for a long time. But they were all on edge, and finally Sam got to his feet in frustration. “You’re not going to make that door open any faster by pacing in front of it, man. Just sit down and wait like the rest of us.”

Bucky whirled on him. “He might _die_ , and I still haven’t even gotten to see him. I never even got to say goodbye to him,” he hissed. “Do you realize that? Does this matter to you?”

Anger flashed across Sam’s face. “How dare you say that to me,” he said, his voice low. “I care about Steve just as much as you do and you God damn well know it. I know you were his friend from way back when and everything, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us—” he motioned to Tony and Natasha “—won’t be broken into pieces if he doesn’t make it out of this alive.”

Tony looked down, anywhere but at Sam and Bucky, and Natasha’s lips quirked into a small smile. She said under her breath, “At least there’s one thing that can still unite us.”

Bucky looked up at Sam, a thin smile on his lips. “The difference is, I don’t have anyone but him. You’re…you belong here. I don’t. I don’t have anyone but him,” he repeated. Tony had never seen or heard Bucky this scared.

Sam breathed out heavily. “That’s just not true. You have _me_. You have your team. If you want to believe you’re alone, that’s on you.” He put a firm hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “But you have me, okay.”

Bucky bowed his head. He put his hand over Sam's and held it hard.

Helen opened the door. She smiled brightly, unable to hold herself back, still in disbelief. “He’s awake.”

Tony leapt up.

\--

Steve’s face was still pale. He was struggling to keep his eyes open, and as they came into the room, he laid his head back on the pillows. Sam and Bucky were at his side right away. Bucky put a hand on his shoulder, gripping it gently. Steve opened his eyes and looked up at them and Bucky whispered, “Don’t you ever do that again.”

“What he said,” Sam murmured, smiling slightly, and Steve started coughing, lifting an arm weakly to his mouth before Helen quickly gave him a cup of water.

“I know, you’re gonna say ‘on your left,’” Sam murmured, taking the cup from Steve when he was finished. “Save your breath. It’s alright, I—I got what you were trying to say.” He smiled, and when Steve started to smile weakly back, Sam’s smile burst into a grin. “Son of a bitch.”

Natasha sat quietly at the foot of the bed. “Hey Steve,” she murmured. Steve sat up a bit as he looked at her, and then his eyes flickered up to Tony in the doorway. Tony swallowed hard and walked mechanically to the chair on the other side of the bed, barely able to stop trembling.

Carol was there. When had Carol-- Tony was beyond grateful for the hand she placed on his shoulder in silent comfort.

“What happened?” Steve whispered, glancing at Sam and Bucky.

“You’ve been out almost a week. Someone shot at you. Tony saved your life,” Sam replied, motioning across at him. “It was poisoned, although I’m sure you figured that part out if you feel anywhere near as awful as you look.”

Steve turned his head to look at Tony, and Tony felt his insides turn over. He was looking at him with a gratitude he hadn’t thought possible, but there was an undercurrent of confusion and doubt.

“Where’s Barton?”

“He’s fine,” Bucky reassured Steve. “Everybody’s fine. Stark found Wanda and she’s okay, too.” He looked up at Tony and this time he wasn’t glaring daggers. That was a start.

Steve looked down, exhausted. “So it’s over,” he said quietly.

Sam nodded. “It’s over, buddy.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered. “I’m sorry. I let everyone down.”

Bucky shook his head. “No. No.”

“You were right, Steve,” Sam said, a hand on his shoulder. “Civilians were getting hurt. That’s not what any of us wanted when we started this.”

“The SRA is going to pass,” Steve continued. “Everything we were fighting for…”

“Not if they don’t have the list,” Tony said suddenly. “I deleted it.”

\--

He hadn’t asked his teammates before he did it. The thought that they might be disappointed in him had crossed his mind, but he didn’t care anymore. He still believed they needed some oversight--but not when Steve might die for this. Never. Nothing was worth Steve's life.

Sam and Bucky stared at him in shock, and Steve, too, his confusion showing through his exhaustion. But Natasha didn’t even blink. Tony realized distantly that she had probably been hoping, even expecting he would do this—she wasn’t willing to keep going down this path that had brought so much devastation any more than he was. At least she wasn’t disappointed in him too.

Carol squeezed his shoulder before sitting beside him.

“I mean, they can still technically pass it,” he continued. “It’s just going to be useless without the information.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam began. “That thing was your baby. And you just…threw it away.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Yep.”

It was Steve who spoke up next. “Don’t get me wrong, this is good news…but it was so important to you, and you just let it go?”

Something in Tony snapped. “NOTHING is more important to me right now than you,” he said, whirling to face Steve. “Definitely not some stupid document. But that didn’t stop me from almost getting you killed." He buried his face in his hands, unable to look at any of them. “I’m sorry, Steve, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. He felt a hand on his, and looked up.

Steve took his hand and pulled it to his own chest, closing his eyes. “Tony…” Tony looked at him in confusion, his heart leaping frantically in his chest. Not Stark. _Tony_. Steve’s jaw was set in a stubborn line. “You know you didn’t pull the trigger.”

“I may as well have.” Steve was warm underneath his hand, and Tony could feel his heart beating.

Steve opened his eyes again, tired, pale and drawn. He looked at Tony, as long and hard as he could, still holding his hand. It looked like just the effort exhausted him. “I’m tired of arguing. Don’t argue with me on this.”

\--

“Yeah, he’s awake,” Tony repeated, and Wanda smiled up at him from her nest of blankets. “You look awfully warm.”

“Pietro,” Wanda explained.

“Still think he hates you? I wouldn’t pile blankets on someone I hated unless I was trying to, I don’t know, smother them?”

Wanda let out a laugh. “You wouldn’t?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

They both laughed and then there was a silence.

“I still haven’t thanked you,” Tony began.

“For what?”

“For saving his life.”

“You saved his life,” Wanda replied.

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without _you,_ ” she replied, a small smile on her lips.

“You’re stubborn. I would’ve liked to have you on my side,” Tony joked, but Wanda’s brow furrowed in displeasure. “Not a good joke. Okay.”

She shook her head. “There are no sides now. It is better this way.”

“I’m sorry…about your brother.”

Wanda shrugged. “He chose to follow you because you saved his life and he trusts you.”

Tony swallowed. “But that wasn’t enough for you.” It wasn’t an accusation—it was an apology.

Wanda looked at him cautiously. “No, it wasn’t. But it is now.”

Tony’s throat tightened. Everything he did was too little, too late. “C’mere.”

He couldn't help but think how powerful this young woman was, to use so much magic under the effects of poison which was more like a bioweapon. He wondered if she'd been holding back during their confrontations. He wondered...how much worse things could have become if the war had lasted longer than it had.

But mostly, as he lay his head on top of Wanda's, he thought about how the woman in his arms was brave and powerful enough that she had saved Tony's whole world.

He pulled away from the hug. Wanda reached up and brushed a tear from his cheek, which earned her a shaky smile.

"Good to have you back, kiddo."

"'Kiddo,'" Wanda teased gently. "Pietro is the younger one."

"Noted."

"Tony."

"Yeah?"

Wanda waited for him to look at her. When he finally met her eyes again, she spoke. "We did this. It's over." Tony tried to stop his lips from trembling and Wanda said, "It's okay."

\--

“Easy there, Steve,” Bucky warned, holding Steve up as he swayed on his feet. As he had slowly improved, he had grown more and more impatient to get out of the hospital.

“You’re positive they won’t re-arrest him? Or us for that matter?” Sam asked Natasha.

“Well, we can’t be sure,” she murmured. “It might be best to take him someplace safe, especially since we don’t yet know who was behind the assassination attempt.”

“I don’t have any hiding places left,” Steve breathed out, sitting down on the side of the bed. Wanda stood in the doorway—she had been up on her feet for a few days now.

After her fever had passed, she had become even sicker with nausea and vomiting and pain until the poison left her body. Tony knew that it would be even worse for Steve. Wanda had merely inhaled the poison. But she had recovered completely, and that meant they’d all be okay. Everything would be okay. Steve could recover from this.

“I know one place they wouldn’t look for you,” Wanda murmured.

Steve glanced up at her. “Where’s that?”

“Stark Tower.”

There was a silence.

“That’s not up to me,” Steve replied. He looked at Tony for a moment before looking away.

Bucky looked uneasily between them. “That actually might work. That’s about the last goddamn place they would look.”

“Thanks,” Tony shot back, but Bucky just looked at him challengingly.

“So what do you say, Stark?” he asked.

Tony looked away from Bucky, turning to Steve. “What do you want? If you want to hide out in Stark Tower, you’re more than welcome. I’ll make myself scarce.”

\--

Helen refused his money and Tony was almost insulted. He didn’t think she knew how badly he owed her. He donated a few million dollars to her company anonymously, but that only took the edge off.

“I’m okay,” Steve reassured them, standing unsteadily. “Let’s go.” He started towards the door, bracing himself against the wall, looking like he was seconds from blacking out.

“Captain Rogers, please be careful,” Helen begged. “I know it's dangerous for you to stay here, but told you I didn’t want to release you yet. You’re still very weak.”

“Thank you, for everything,” he replied. “But I have to go.” He stumbled and Tony rushed to his side, holding him up by the waist, all 200 pounds of supersoldier. Sam was there a moment later just to make sure Tony got him.

It was like on the steps of the courthouse, only this time, he couldn’t hide behind his armor. Steve sank against him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and putting all his weight on him. Tony adjusted his hand on Steve’s waist. It was a lot all at once, Steve warm and heavy in his arms—the last time he had been this close to Steve had been the battlefield. After everything that happened between them, their friendship was so damaged, maybe irreparably, but Tony held on to Steve as if he could somehow salvage some last piece of trust between them, even if it would break his own heart in the process.

Tony helped him to the elevator, still holding him up as he leaned against the wall. He felt panic flaring up in his chest. His throat felt raw from all the crying. Out of earshot of the others, Tony murmured, “Hey, you know what, I’ll let Sam switch out for me, how’s that? I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now. I’ll…go, as soon as we get back.”

“No.” Tony was surprised by the belligerence in Steve’s voice. Steve turned against Tony, putting his other arm around his shoulders, and Tony felt him breathe out a sigh. “No,” he heard Steve whisper again. And then, quietly, “Please don’t leave.”

\--

Sam and Bucky set Steve up in the room he used to sleep in. Everyone was there now, but it didn’t feel like it used too—it was tense. It was strange. Tony disappeared to his lab, knowing very well that he was just avoiding the problem.

He collapsed on his work table, alone for the first time in over a week. It wasn’t worry for Steve, or guilt, or shame that was foremost in his mind, it was exhaustion. He could barely lift his head when he heard the knock on the door.

Sam came in. He looked at Tony, how his face was smudged with grease, then around at the chaos of his lab.

“Hey.”

Tony looked at him blankly.

“I just wanted to say…Steve needs you. Maybe he doesn’t make it very clear.” Sam looked down. “You know, there’s something he used to say. ‘If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this together.’ That can still be true.” He looked back at Tony.

“If he’ll still have me,” Tony murmured, too tired to argue.

Sam nodded. “If you’ll still have him.” He paused. “This isn’t over, is it. The SRA is going to pass or it isn’t, but this isn’t over yet. I’m here to talk when you’re ready.”

\--

When he came to Steve’s room that night, he was asleep. Natasha was there, sitting beside the bed. She looked up when she saw him.

“He looked so peaceful,” she murmured, glancing back at Steve.

Tony felt a hollow feeling in his chest. He knew Natasha had been close to him. Here they were again, feeling the same thing.

He felt like he’d grown closer to Natasha in the past week than in the years they had fought side by side.

\--

Tony woke up in the early morning. Natasha was gone. Steve had rolled over on his side, breathing shallowly. Tony got up to get some water, and when he came back, Steve was awake.

“Here.”

Steve took a few sips of water and then laid back down, sighing.

It was silent for a moment.

“How you feeling, Cap?” Tony asked, but his voice came out more strained than he wanted.

“I’ve felt better,” Steve replied quietly, and Tony’s mouth quirked up in a humorless smile.

It killed him to see Steve like this, but at the same time, he had never imagined a week ago that he’d be sitting here at Steve’s bedside, watching him wake up—that he’d be alive and okay.

Tony looked up to see Steve watching him. But whatever question was on Steve’s mind, he didn’t get a chance to ask it.

“Breakfast?” Tony asked, and Steve made an effort to get out of bed. Tony noticed that someone had brought him a change of clothes, his usual sweatpants and t-shirt.

Tony helped Steve to his feet and to the kitchen. He didn’t need to rely on him quite as much this time, but when they got to the table, Steve looked slightly ill.

Tony was reluctant to let him go.

He busied himself by making Steve breakfast. He remembered exactly how he liked his eggs, and hoped Steve wouldn't think it was awful that be could make him breakfast like they hadn't just been on opposing sides of a war.

Steve ate slowly, his shoulders bowed. Finally he glanced up at Tony.

“I’m sorry, I can’t finish this."

“You’ve gotta eat,” Tony argued, pushing the plate closer to Steve, as if that would do anything.

“You know I can’t keep anything in my stomach,” Steve sighed.

"It’ll take a while. Helen said—”

“Look, I throw up almost everything I eat."

“Come on, Steve, you have to eat something—”

"As much as I hate to agree with him, Stark is right,” Bucky murmured, and Tony turned to see the man standing on the other side of the kitchen.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve greeted him.

Bucky leaned against the counter next to him. “You were always a stubborn motherfucker.”

“I’m not hungry,” Steve replied. “It’s like before the serum. I’m tired. And I can’t breathe.” He pressed a hand over his chest. And then darkly, "I _really_ missed this, I gotta say."

“The guys who shot you were lucky you’re the walking definition of a human disaster,” Bucky interrupted. He hauled Steve to his feet. “Come on, we’re going for a walk. Don’t wimp out on me, Rogers. Nauseated?”

“Not yet," Steve admitted with a fond roll of his eyes. He put his arm around Bucky's shoulders.

Bucky looked up at Tony for a moment, and this time it was gratitude that showed in his eyes for just a moment, so brief Tony almost thought he was seeing things.

He must have been staring after Steve for a long time. Carol had come into the kitchen and paused, looking at Tony’s vacant expression. She put her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him slightly. She didn’t say anything, and Tony relaxed against her.

“I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me,” he said absently.

“That’s on him,” Carol replied. “You have to take care of yourself right now. If Rhodey was here he’d tell you—”

"That I look like a mess. I know.” Tony smiled slightly.

Carol smiled at him when she pulled away. "You said it, not me."

Tony smiled at that. Carol watched his smile fade slowly until he had given up on the attempt entirely, and said, "Tony, you can't control what he does. You've done what you can."

Tony shook his head, and shrugged bitterly. "I guess we'll see if that's enough."

\--

Sam and Bucky spent the day with Steve, but Tony was allowed to watch over him again that night. They didn’t talk—not about the war.

Tony noticed Jan talking to Steve the next day. After she said something he had hugged her a bit weakly, and then Natasha had come over to talk to him too. She was cautious, and didn’t push him, she just showed him that she was there, and Tony saw how much Steve had missed her. He tried not to wonder if Steve had missed him too.

He decided that it wasn’t a question he wanted answered, and stayed out of Steve’s way. Natasha started spending time helping Sam and Bucky with their diligent effort at making sure Steve ate enough and got what exercise he could manage. They took turns watching over Steve at night, but Tony slept better at his bedside than anywhere else. It didn’t take long for it to happen again—the nightmare where Steve was lying dead on the courthouse steps. Only this time he was trying to say something before he died, struggling to form words as life left his eyes, his hand grasping, frantic, at Tony's shoulder.

Tony had fallen asleep on his work table in his lab. He woke with a start. It was dark, and he was disoriented. When he opened the door to Steve’s room, Sam looked up, bleary eyed, from the chair by his bed. He got up quietly, coming to stand by the door.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, looking at Tony’s red eyes, clearly seeing something familiar reflected there.

Tony looked down, all his armor gone, and nodded.

And after that, Tony somehow wound up keeping a watch over Steve every night, until it became part of the routine. Sam didn’t ask him about it, he just let him be.

\--

"Thought I'd find you up here," Natasha said, sitting down next to Tony on the edge of the roof. The city glowed below them through the darkness. Tony had flown up here to get some fresh air and clear his head--alone--but who was he kidding, Natasha's company was always welcome.

After some time, Natasha shifted. "I talked with Clint."

Tony turned to look at her, and waited, trying not to expect the worst.

Natasha smiled sadly and shrugged. "I said I had believed what I was doing was right but…" She trailed off. "Clint knows that I…" She sighed and shook her head. "I tried to apologize to him for my part in this, and he said, 'don't take all the blame yourself, Nat, leave some for the rest of us.'" She hummed a bit of a laugh. "You and me, we always wanted to believe that there’s a right side to be on, some sort of redemption at the end of all this to right our wrongs, but I'm starting to think in this one there’s only losers."

Tony looked abruptly away and let her words settle into the silence. "Isn't this a terrible idea? All of us being around each other again, just pretending nothing happened, never able to fix things?"

"That's a big of a self fulfilling prophecy don't you think?"

Tony scoffed. "What, you think we can fix _any_ of this?"

"I don't know, but isn't it worth it to try?"

Tony looked at her--really looked at her. Natasha looked tired, but she also looked happy. Relaxed. _Alive_. Like he had her old partner back, or could at least glimpse a future where they'd trust each other again. And it was the first time Tony had seen her like this in months.

"Hey, how come I've missed you even though we've been on the same side this whole time?"

Natasha gave him a rare smile--not one of her bittersweet ones but a real one--and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"That can't be comfortable with the armor-"

"Shut up, Stark, we're having a moment."

Tony mimed zipping his lips. They sat together in silence, looking over the city, and Tony wondered how bad it would be if he allowed himself to feel a little hope just this once.

\--

The poison still in Steve's body affected him in fits of pain, nausea, difficulty breathing. It was hard to tell which were conditions caused by the poison or the serum being repressed. It was disturbing for Tony to see Steve reluctant to even go on a walk, but he was grateful that Sam and Bucky were just as concerned as he was. It almost felt like he wasn't needed. Which was fine.

It was fine.

\--

Steve collapsed onto the couch next to Tony. It was late—they both should have been in bed hours ago, if Tony even slept in a bed anymore, which he didn’t—he slept in the chair by Steve’s bed every night.

“Tony,” Steve started, and Tony was instantly on edge.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he interrupted, getting to his feet and pulling Steve up after him. But Steve stopped him, a hand on his arm.

“Are we okay?” he asked quietly.

Tony was taken aback. “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?” Steve’s jaw was set. “Because the short answer is yes, we’re fine,” Tony said. “You’re alive and we’re not trying to kill each other. The long answer is no, not a chance in hell. How, after everything that has happened to you because of _me_ —”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Tony was thrown again. “What? No, I haven’t. I’m just…giving you space.”

Steve looked down, sadness showing in his eyes. “So what’s your plan here?” Anger tinged his voice. “You want to make sure I don’t die during the night, but other than that…”

“Steve,” Tony hissed, “that’s not how it is and you know it.”

Steve turned back to him, looking him straight on. “Then how is it? Tell me.”

Tony felt the prick of tears behind his eyes and shut his eyes tightly until it went away. He looked up at Steve coldly. “I got you killed. I didn’t almost get you killed—you were dead. You _died_. I don’t just get to be friends with you after everything that happened, that was _my fault._ I know I can’t hope for that. It’s just…not in the cards. At least I’m here, right? I thought it would be better if I just left, but—”

“So you _were_ going to leave.”

“I didn’t.”

Steve looked at him, and Tony couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “So what you’re telling me,” Steve started quietly, “is I don’t get a say? That we’re done?”

Tony turned away abruptly, tears in his eyes again.

“You don’t get to do that to me,” Steve hissed. “Look at me.”

Tony turned back, and averted his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Steve turned quickly and walked away, heading to his room. He had nothing left to say.

Tony sat down on the couch in exhaustion, his head in his hands. He was starting to get a headache.

\--

It was the middle of the night when Tony heard a noise from Steve’s room. He opened the door to see Steve pale, sitting up in bed, coughing. He rushed to his side.

“Nausea?”

Steve shook his head. “Inhaler,” he gasped.

“Right.”

"God-"

It took a few times, Tony watching Steve's face worriedly. Steve lay back down on the pillows, exhausted. “Tony—” he started.

"How are you feeling, any better?"

Steve rubbed his chest. He looked awful. And angry as hell. "Yeah. Listen...."

“Get some sleep, Cap,” Tony interrupted. “Let’s worry about it in the morning.”

He sat down in the chair by the bedside and drifted off, his face smushed against his hand.

\--

When Steve woke up he lay silently for a while, and finally turned over to look at Tony, who was still crumpled by the side of his bed. Tony thought he looked even angrier than he had before. He got up weakly to sit on the side of the bed, and the silence dragged on until he turned to face Tony.

“Why are you here? If you can’t forgive me—are—are you shutting me out because you can’t forgive me?”

“No, Steve, God no.”

“But you’re here, and I can’t talk to you, and it’s almost worse than if we didn’t talk at all, if you didn’t even look at me—”

“That’s not how it is.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You know that’s not fair.”

“Another thing I don’t understand, is why you just gave up,” Steve said suddenly, and Tony could tell he wasn’t going to let this go.

“Things changed.”

“Things _changed_?” Steve repeated.

Tony didn’t want a fight. He just didn't have it in him. “Like I said last night—”

“Yeah, I died. I know. But we fought for so long, and I never thought that you would—”

“You never thought you’d win? Well, you did, Steve,” Tony snapped, “so why don’t you just be happy about it?” He knew he shouldn't be arguing with Steve when he was in this state.

“Because I don’t understand what happened,” Steve shot back, folding his arms. “You would have done anything to stop me before.”

“And then I realized that it wasn’t worth your life,” Tony replied, raising his voice. “Hell, you gave yourself up to the police. Don’t talk to me about giving up the cause—”

“Is that the same thing to you?”

“Looks like it to me.”

Steve snorted. “Do you remember what you said to me…” He looked up at Tony. “You were ready to give your life to stop me. You—”

Tony got to his feet, his eyes flaring with anger. “No, I wasn’t. I was ready to let you kill me, there’s a difference.”

Steve looked at him in shock and sudden understanding, the color fading from his cheeks. Tony turned and walked out of the room.

\--

He walked mechanically to the kitchen. He found himself staring into the bottom of the third cup of coffee before anyone else was awake.

Footsteps made him glance up, and Wanda inhaled sharply at the sight of his dark circles and sunken eyes.

“Tony, are you okay?” she asked.

“I should be the one asking you that, kid,” he replied, turning away.

“I’ve felt fine ever since we left the hospital.”

Tony nodded.

“I’ve noticed Steve is doing better,” Wanda said cautiously. “He seems to less trouble doing things by himself. The poison is causing him less pain. I even heard him talking with Sam about going on a run soon.”

“Oh,” Tony mumbled distantly.

Wanda looked in concern at Tony’s bowed head and walked around the table to his side.

“He’ll be okay,” she insisted. Tony nodded absentmindedly.

“Tony,” Wanda said, reaching out a hand to his shoulder. There was a flash of red and she stepped back with a cry.

“What the fuck just happened?” Tony asked, bracing himself against the table.

Wanda winced, turning her head away. The flood of memories and feelings hit her in no particular order, all coalescing into one jarring moment of pain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She was looking at him like he had been shot, Tony realized humorlessly. It was so funny because the thought had crossed his mind that it should have been him.

He shook his head in confusion. “Was that some weird magic residue from the spell, or something? Please tell me you know what that was.”

But Wanda wasn’t listening to him. “I didn’t know,” she whispered, and Tony’s blood ran cold.

“What did you—“

“I didn’t know about him.”

Tony looked away like he had been slapped. He turned to go.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” she whispered, and he paused in the doorway, and then left.

\--

It wasn’t her fault.

Tony was resting his head on his arms, parts of the Iron Man suit jumbled on the table in front of him. Since last night this was just going from bad to worse to terrible, and with Wanda accidentally seeing into his mind, he had no doubt about what she had seen there.

He felt violated. The one thing he was supposed to tell Steve—in some other alternate version of events were things were okay between them—and now she knew it. He was ashamed that he could ever love Steve this much and not deserve his love in return. And he was supposed to be the only one who knew.

He threw the gauntlet he was working on as hard as he could across the room, and it crashed to the ground. He stood up, breathing hard, and that’s when he heard the door open. He whirled to see Steve standing there, his face pale. This must be taking an even greater toll on him, Tony realized with sudden shame.

“I came to say I’m sorry,” Steve said, and Tony looked away.

“Okay,” Tony said lamely.

Steve sat down on the couch behind him, and Tony hammered the piece of armor in front of him until it was flattened. The hammer blows died away into silence.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Steve said, voice quiet, and Tony finally sat down, burying his face in his hands.

Then something snapped inside him and he stood up again, whirling to look at Steve. “But you did, Steve. You hurt me…you hurt me so, so much. I wanted you to end it. But that doesn’t make it right."

Steve’s brow darkened. “Even after everything that happened, how could you think I _would_ —” He stopped, cutting off the anger in his voice. “I guess you didn’t know.” Tony’s heart wrenched at the guilt in Steve’s voice. “But I just need you to know I wouldn't—”

“I’m not saying you don’t have every right to hate me."

Steve got to his feet. “What, and that would give me a right to _kill_ you?”

Tony shrugged bitterly.

“When I woke up in this era, I had no one, I had nothing,” Steve went on, his voice catching in his throat. “You gave me a purpose, somewhere to belong…you gave me a home.” The words slowly sunk in, and Tony turned to look at him. He searched Steve’s eyes, trying to find some catch. Steve looked back across the divide between them. “Don’t you know that?”

Tony looked down. “I wasn’t…thinking about what you wanted, or-or what I meant to you—or what you would do. I was just asking for you to end it,” he said quietly. “And I really thought you were going to. I really did.”

“Why would you want me to?” Steve asked carefully.

“The war was killing me, Steve,” Tony said, afraid to look at his face. The silence that followed was somehow worse.

“Looks like it killed a little bit of both of us.”

Tony breathed out a sigh, and looked away, and so it caught him by surprise when Steve’s arms were around him suddenly. Steve hugged him gently, arms resting on his back, and Tony let his face fall down onto Steve’s shoulder.

“I could never do that to you,” Steve whispered. “I couldn’t…” He hugged Tony so tight that Tony thought he would break, but Steve held him together. Steve could always hold him together like this.

He wished he could freeze that moment in time.

“Please believe me,” Steve whispered, and it sounded like he was crying.

He pulled away awkwardly, and Tony did his best to not reach out and grab his hand.

Tony felt his lips trembling. He cleared his throat. "I know I have blood on my hands. So much. I don't want the government telling us what to do anymore than you do-- telling us we can't protect people we want to protect. But there are others like us out there, and they don't all have your good intentions. I don't think regulating that is a bad thing. Do you still think the safest hands are our own, when we can do things like this to each other?"

And just like that Steve’s jaw tightened like steel, and he looked away. “What do you want me to do, apologize?”

Tony took a step back, his chest tightening. “Isn’t that what you came here to do?”

Steve’s eyes hardened. “For hurting you, not for fighting for what’s right.”

It felt like Tony's heart was falling into the pit of his stomach. “I saw you give yourself up, Steve. I saw you _realize_ that you were hurting civilians—the same people you wanted to protect.”

“I thought you realized that what you were doing was wrong,” Steve bit out between his teeth.

Tony blinked back the tears in his eyes, staring at Steve in horror. “No, I realized that we were both wrong.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Isn’t it? In all the years you’ve been fighting, there hasn’t been any grey area? Something that made us compromise our own ideals in the pursuit of our _goals_? Something that could tear us apart, people who have known each other for years, people who—who care about each other—Steve, _God_ , can’t you just try to see—”

“I’m trying,” Steve said, and he sounded like he'd had the life drained out of him. “God, am I trying.”

“Not a perfect soldier, but a good man,” Tony said quietly, and he knew it was mean. He knew and he said it anyway. “That’s how it goes right?”

The color bled from Steve’s face, his lips tightening in anger. “What are you saying, that I’ve failed—”

Tony wiped his tears away quickly. “Makes two of us,” he spat out, instantly hating how bitter the words tasted in his mouth.

And just like that, Steve left.

Tony was almost concerned for Steve's asthmatic lungs, but he was a little too angry to be. Instead he found himself sitting at his work table trembling with rage and grief. Trying not to cry just made him feel worse. And it all ended up coming out anyway as he worked, doing anything to keep his hands busy. He ended up getting tears all over his work and throwing it aside in frustration.

\--

Tony didn't know how many hours later Steve returned, only that he did, and he looked worse than Tony felt. If that was even possible. His face was red, but drawn, and his expression hard as stone. He looked tired as the grave.

He waited in silence for Tony to look at him, fidgeting with his hands. When he knew he finally had Tony’s attention, he took a deep breath.

“I want to own up to my side of this, like you have for yours.” His lip trembled as he looked anywhere that wasn’t Tony. “Maybe Nat was right. There’s more than enough blame to go around.” He paused. His eyes were so red, it felt like a stab to the gut every time Tony looked at him.

“Tony, I..."

The silence that followed was the heaviest and tensest moment between them, Tony could almost not bear it, waiting, hoping for what Steve would say, that when it came, Steve’s soft--“I’m so sorry”--Tony felt like crying. It was heavy to feel it, the knowledge that you hadn't been a good man, that you had failed, and Steve, fucking _perfect_ Steve Rogers was feeling it for the first time. And that made Tony feel so irrationally angry and so relieved and so sad and so full of utter self loathing--

Steve’s jaw hardened as tears fell down his face. “Can you forgive me?” he asked simply. "For losing sight of our goal to make this a safer world?"

And despite all that, how hard it had been for Steve to apologize, how long it had taken for him to acknowledge there might be _two_ sides to this, Tony heard himself say "Always forgive you, Steve, always," and the worst part was he meant it. He meant it with his whole heart and soul. He reached out and squeezed Steve’s hand. “Can you forgive me?”

“I have,” Steve whispered, holding onto Tony’s hand. “God, I never even listened, not even at the beginning. You wanted to talk about accountability, and I didn’t realize that I was—” He let out a breath as he collapsed on the couch again. “I was—”

“You _are_ a good man,” Tony murmured. “The best I’ve ever known. We all make mistakes. I know that better than anyone."

The tears dried on Steve’s face, he looked drained and pale. Tony sat down in a chair in front of Steve, like the breath had been knocked out of him. When he looked back up to meet Steve’s eyes, he saw the same guilt and shame that he felt, but he still almost couldn’t believe it, because if Steve didn’t blame him for everything that had happened, maybe, maybe Steve didn’t hate him.

“What was the one thing you wanted to tell me?”

Tony felt light-headed all of a sudden, almost sick. “The what?”

“You said there was one thing you should have told me—”

“So you heard that.” He turned away, hand over his eyes. Steve hadn’t even had a pulse at the time. _How the fuck--_

Steve shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t piece it all together.”

Tony composed himself and turned back to look at Steve. He had to sell this lie convincingly, because he wasn’t ready to tell the truth. “I wanted to tell you…that you’re the best man I’ve ever known. That I care about our friendship. That I’m sorry.”

Steve considered what Tony was saying for a moment. “You’ve told me those things before.”

“Even the best man part?”

“It was after we found Bucky,” Steve said, with the hint of a smile. “I think your exact words were, ‘you’re one of the best and stupidest men I’ve ever known.’”

“You were harboring a brainwashed lethal assassin who had been bent on killing you,” Tony pointed out without a hint of humor, although he thought maybe in some other situation this would be funny.

“Not my point,” Steve replied. His eyes were tired as he looked up at Tony.

“So…maybe I just wanted to tell you again,” Tony said, spreading his arms defensively. “It was my last chance. I thought.”

Steve sighed and nodded, seeming to accept what Tony was saying. “So, if you feel that way, why would you try to shut me out?”

The reason they had gotten into this argument in the first place. “There’s no going back to how things were,” Tony stated flatly.

“Maybe not,” Steve replied, standing. “But if going forward is our only option, I’d rather have you by my side.”

Steve was looking at him hard, and Tony had a hard time resisting him when he was like this. He looked away, and then down at his hands. He nodded. “I won’t shut you out.” God, he had never really wanted to.

He looked up to see Steve’s eyes shining with relief.

“All those things...all the things I said and did--I'm--I'm so, so sorry. I know that's not enough, but I hope you will allow me the chance to earn your friendship back. I don't deserve it...I just hope you'll let me, if that’s what you really want. I’m not half as good at anything as I am when I’m doing it next to you. And that's the truth.”

“That _is_ what I want, Tony,” Steve replied earnestly. “And I’m not…any good at any of this without you, either,” he added, and allowed himself a small smile. “After everything, I’m just I’m lucky that you still want this.”

“It’s a deal then,” Tony said, extending his hand, and Steve took it. He placed his other hand over Tony’s.

“Just understand you’ve saved my life in more ways than one,” Steve said quietly. “I don't know what kind of man I'd be not to see that.”

Tony looked away again, tugging his hand away from Steve. “You’re a stubborn motherfucker, I’ll give you that.”

Steve snorted. “I think maybe that’s why we got into this mess.”

Tony looked up, smiling a bit. “I don’t hold it against you.”

Steve let out a small laugh. “Maybe you should.” Tony felt the tension in his chest begin to melt at the sound of Steve’s laugh--God, it had been so long since he heard it sound this genuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be posted soon I hope, since it's almost done. It will be about as long as this one. Edit: it's up!!
> 
> I super appreciate comments of any length! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a scene in this chapter where Tony isn't present that's just between Steve and Sam, and I thought it might interrupt the flow of the story to shift points of view, but I liked it so I kept it :)

It wasn’t normal after that, far from it, but things were more comfortable between them. Not just Tony and Steve, but the whole team—if that’s something they still were. 

Helen sent Tony a more advanced antidote she had developed since Steve had left the hospital. He watched Bucky inject it into Steve's arm, and Steve cracked some jokes about wanting to go run a marathon, but of course the effect would be much slower than that.

Steve began to eat more, and he had more energy, but he was frequently out of breath as his body continued to fight the remaining poison. He had a fever that came and went. He insisted that he didn’t need anyone to watch him at night, but Tony stayed anyway—from what he could gather Steve’s health had been a nightmare before the serum, and that meant he wasn’t going to stop worrying about him until he was 100% normal again.

Steve started to hang out in Tony’s lab, and he brought his sketchbook like he used to. It wasn’t every day, but he was there so often Tony assumed it was him when he heard the door open.

“Steve?”

“It’s me, Tony,” Pepper said. “I came to say hi.”

He turned to embrace her.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” she said, holding him by the arms, looking at him closely, and Tony squirmed as usual under her attention.

“I’m fine,” he said, motioning at the disorganized pile on his work table. “Just the usual.”

Pepper shook her head. “Tony, you look exhausted. When was the last time you got a full night’s sleep? In a bed?”

“That,” he said, pointing at her, “is a good question.” If Pepper knew he was sleeping in a chair every night by Steve’s bed, she would…it was better that she didn’t know.

Pepper raised her hands. “I don’t even have to tell you what I think of that,” she exclaimed.

“So did you hear, they struck down the SRA?” he asked, not because he was trying to change the subject—maybe a little bit—but because he wanted to hear her opinion. “Too much trouble defining what it means to be superhuman.”

“It seems…for the best,” she murmured. “It’s out of any of your hands now.”

 “Yeah.”

“I know you,” Pepper added, “and I know how you like to beat yourself up. You have to stop beating yourself up about this, for your own sake and everyone else’s.”

“I’m working on it, Pep.”

“I know you are.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and Tony put his hand over it. He had missed her after they broke up—he had missed her so much. It had been a long time since he didn’t have that hollow feeling in his chest of missing someone.

And the truth of the matter was, knowing that Steve cared about him—somehow enough to forgive him—didn’t mean that Tony didn’t feel guilty. But it made him feel like there must be something good in him that Steve saw, something worthy. He would regret and mourn what had happened, but he’d keep going because of Steve’s faith in him, and because he knew Steve bitterly regretted hurting him. It didn’t make it go away, but it meant they could go forward.

That was everything.

\--

Tony talked with Sam and Carol a bit about what oversight would look like now that the SRA was gone--how much there would be and what that meant. How they could retain their independence and freedom to act while taking accountability for the damage they caused. They didn't have any answers yet, but it was a conversation that would have made Tony's stomach churn a few weeks ago, and now, it was almost easy. Not having the answers just meant they'd figure it out together. 

Carol pointed out that even if they put some regulations on unlicensed weapons technology, whoever had tried to assassinate Steve had infiltrated the police force. If the Avengers wanted accountability they couldn't do it blindly. They couldn't trust that they were always working with the right people. They couldn't always act within the law if the law was enforced by people dangerous to them.

Tony wondered if Sam believed he'd be willing to break the law. He knew how it looked--until now he'd done everything the government asked. He'd done it partly because someone had to be there and better him than anyone else. But there was no looking back. He'd wanted control over the process and in doing so had lost control of what really mattered. 

He was all in.

"Bottom line, I'm not making decisions without your guys’ input. We'll work together and figure things out," Tony said. "If you'll take me at my word."

"I will." Sam nodded as he shook Tony's hand. It was a step.

Tony headed out, turning back to watch Carol and Sam. They were exchanging stories from their army days. Sam laughed out loud at something Carol said and Tony couldn't help but smile a little bit, looking at them, feeling strangely like he had stumbled back in time for a moment.

He'd missed this.

\--

Steve rolled over in bed, throwing back the covers. “If you’re going to sleep in here every night you may as well sleep in the bed.”

Tony rubbed his eyes. “Oh, uh…”

"Sleeping in a chair can't possibly be good for your back." When Tony didn't respond, Steve repeated, "Get in,” and Tony sat down on the side of the bed before he really had time to think about the mistake he was making.

"Yeah, _yeah_ , okay, Cap, I guess I'm getting too old for this."

He woke up without his neck aching, or his eyes hurting, or that dizzy hollow feeling of sleep deprivation. He was warm, and relaxed...and his hand was resting against Steve’s arm.

\--

It went on like that, for a while. He worked and slept. He started to sleep better. A few times he woke up with his hand brushing against Steve’s shoulder or elbow, but for the most part they didn’t touch.

And yet somehow it made him sadder than before. More lonely. He hated himself for wanting something that was so preposterous for him to want, and for withdrawing when they were all so close to feeling like a team again, just because one man didn't love him the way he wanted to be loved, the way he fantasized about being loved, when he couldn't stop himself from imagining it and he was too weak to stop it.

When he poured himself a drink for the first time since the shooting on the courthouse steps, it was just out of habit. Muscle memory. He wasn't thinking. He rubbed his forehead and set the glass down, turning his back on it as he busied himself with running diagnostics on his repaired armor.

When he turned around, Bucky was standing there, even though Tony was sure he hadn't heard anything over the noise he'd been making. 

"This a case of good cop bad cop?" Tony asked, pointing at Bucky. "I get why Sam is the good cop. Handsome, funny, doesn't sneak up on people."

Bucky seemed to ignore that and walked slowly into the room, glancing around. He stopped in front of the table and then leveled a look at Tony. "What is this."

Tony shrugged and tried not to roll his eyes. He really didn't feel like doing this today. "Whiskey."

"Were you drinking it?"

Tony breathed out slowly, trying to remain calm. He decided to be honest. "Hadn't decided yet."

Bucky picked up the glass in his prosthetic hand, lifted his head back and drained it slowly, savoring it.

"Hey, what are you--"

"Steve needs you sober."

Tony felt those words like a punch, though not an altogether unpleasant one. It felt good to be needed. It felt so good he almost didn't want that drink. No, it felt so good he almost felt like he'd already _had_ the drink. He swallowed that feeling, feeling it settle down warm and fizzy into his chest and send tingles out to the ends of his limbs.

"What, so you _like_ me now? You're trying to help me--by stealing whiskey out from under my nose?" 

Bucky set the glass down, still filled with ice. "Metabolism. Whiskey doesn't do much for me since the war."

"Then what is this doing for you exactly?"

Bucky became silent. Then he said after a moment, "I still don't trust you but I guess I respect you after what you've done here. I think I owe it to Steve to be here to say that."

"I don't trust you either."

Weirdly, that got Bucky to smile. Weirdo. "That's fine, I don't mind. I really don't."

Tony shook his head. "Okay."

Bucky turned to go--with the entire bottle of whiskey, Tony noticed. When he was near the door, Tony blurted out, "I wasn't going to drink it."

He wished he hadn’t said it. He knew how pathetic he sounded. Bucky looked at him for a moment and then turned, leaving Tony to stare at the ice melting.

\--

There were still no new leads on the people who had shot Steve, but with everyone’s help Tony knew they would get there. What he didn’t know is how much he would hate it when they did.

“Red Skull,” Sam repeated, his voice low. Bucky's face was rigid. Tony looked quickly over at Steve. His back was turned, his shoulders stiff.

“Steve,” Bucky said, and Steve turned.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

“Is that guy even real,” Rhodey muttered. Tony could tell by the way Wanda and Pietro were standing close together that the name inspired real fear and hatred in them.

“I thought he was dead,” Clint interjected, glancing at Nat.

“So did I,” Steve finally said, turning to face them. He was silent for a long moment. “I need to go.”

\--

Which of course meant that Tony went after him, even though Bucky shook his head like maybe that was a bad idea. Well, Tony apparently loved bad ideas.

“We’ll take care of this, Steve. You have a team now. I put you in danger, but it won’t happen again—”

Steve stopped abruptly. “Tony, we’ve talked about this. You did everything you could."

“Not everything.”

Steve kept walking, heading back to his room. It was late. “It’s not your fault Red Skull is still out there. He was mine to kill, and I failed.” He pushed the door open and turned to look at Tony, his expression guarded. “After everyone who’s died, why couldn’t Red Skull be another one on the list? Why couldn’t he just stay in the past where he belongs?”

Tony remembered what Steve had said to him. _When I woke up in this era, I had no one, nothing._ Not even Peggy, even though she was alive, and he knew that had broken Steve’s heart, knowing everything he had missed out on, everything that could have been.

"I know…it must have been tough, waking up to a completely different world, and you couldn’t go back—I-I can’t even imagine how much. But we’ll fight him together, send him back where he belongs, if that can make anything better—”

Steve sat down on the side of the bed. He shrugged. “That wasn’t the worst part,” he said quietly. He looked up after a moment to Tony, who was silent, waiting. “No, what was worse…” Steve began, “I didn’t want to go back. I had already lost my family, my best friend, even Peggy…I had made peace with the idea that I was giving my life in the service of my country. I was ready to die. But I didn’t get to,” he whispered. Tony realized he looked furious, his expression as still as stone.

Tony knelt at Steve’s feet, taking his hand. “Steve, baby,” he whispered, looking up at him. He didn’t even have time to mentally yell at himself for calling Steve “baby.” Blame it on years of getting used to saying that out loud to Pepper or something. Steve's jaw was still strong, trembling slightly as he closed his eyes to stop the tears.

“But then I met you,” Steve whispered. “Sam, Nat. I got Bucky back again…” he let out a bitter laugh. “I guess _he_ doesn’t die easy. At some point I started not wanting to go back in the ice. I had a family. And then, the courthouse…I’m not ready to die, not anymore. I'm not done."

Tony pulled him into his arms. Steve gingerly relaxed. He was so silent Tony didn't realize he was crying at first until his chest was heaving. It surprised and saddened Tony---the quietness. Sobs shook his body but he choked back the sound, breathing heavily against Tony’s neck. Tony held him tighter and it felt like Steve was almost going to crush him in return. Tony pulled him gently back onto the bed, wrapping his hand around the back of Steve’s head and holding him close.

Tony knew that Steve must have felt the serum weaken—he had felt himself begin to fade away. Tony had thought that there was no way he could live, but Steve probably known it in a way that couldn’t have felt more certain. Tony knew exactly how it felt to face that cold inevitability: when Stane had ripped out his arc reactor and left him paralyzed on the floor, he had been helpless, sure he would die there.

“I’m not going to let him get to you again,” Tony said quietly. “I swear to you. We’re a team now. We’ll all be here protecting each other. And we’ll have your back. As far as I’m concerned that’s the most important job anyway.”

Steve was gasping for air now, and Tony hastily leaned over and grabbed his inhaler from the bedside table.

After a while Steve began breathing easier. He exhaled a few uneven breaths.

“I hurt you, just like he hurt me,” Steve said quietly. “I put you in that place.”

So he was picturing Tony's bloodied face below him on the battlefield as he begged for Steve to end it all. Tony pulled him closer, curling his arm around his back and squeezing his shoulder, burying his face in his hair. He held Steve as tight as he could, squeezing his eyes shut. He wanted to say, _but I still love you. God, do I still love you._

_\--_

Tony held him for a long time. Although Steve's tears were almost over before they started, Tony didn’t want to let him go. After some time, Steve shifted.

"Well, I’m going to get a fucking headache,” he muttered.

“I can get you some water, Cap,” Tony replied, squeezing his shoulder.

“No, it’s okay, I’ll get it,” Steve replied, letting go of Tony slowly. Tony dropped his arms immediately, but Steve seemed reluctant to get up.

“We should get you to bed. Brush those perfect teeth in the morning.”

That earned a tired smile from Steve. “Yeah.”

He came back from the bathroom and got back into bed, turning off the light. Tony moved over instinctively and Steve turned his back to him. Tony heard Steve breath out a long sigh, and then saw the silhouette of his shoulder drop slightly as he turned over.

He took Tony’s hand and pulled it over his side as he turned his back again. Tony’s heart thudded in his chest and he closed his eyes and then opened them--Steve brought his hand all the way around to hold his waist, pulling Tony closer, and then lifted his shoulders, as if he expected Tony to put his arm underneath. So Tony wrapped his other arm around Steve and felt him settle back down with another sigh.

Steve’s back was pressed to Tony's chest, and Tony didn't know where to put his face, because nestling it tenderly at the back of Steve's neck seemed inappropriate.

“Tony,” Steve murmured after a moment, his voice buzzing pleasantly through Tony’s body.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Least I can do,” Tony replied. Rested his head down on the pillow behind Steve's. “For the record, if you get killed again, I’ll shoot you myself.”

To Tony’s surprise, Steve burst out laughing, letting his head fall back and clutching Tony’s hand to his chest.

“It’s not that funny,” Tony said, but laughs were still shaking Steve’s body. “Don’t laugh too hard, you asthmatic wreck.” 

Steve sighed, letting out another little laugh as he laid his head down. “I missed you, Tony,” he said suddenly, his hand still holding Tony’s over his chest.

Tony’s heart  _ached_ to hear those words and he closed his eyes, letting himself relax against Steve, like a coiled spring gradually releasing. “I missed you too."

\--

Sam came to get Steve in the morning. Tony had just finished shaving and come out of the bathroom when Sam turned to him.

“Oh, hey man. Jesus, you should really sleep in something other than a chair sometime.”

Tony waved him off, and Steve didn’t say anything to correct him either. It was a little bit weird that they kept it a secret, Tony thought, but then again, there was nothing to it, because there couldn’t possibly be anything to it. Him and Steve? Never going to happen. Steve didn't even date women. He certainly didn't date men.

\--

The mood that day was quieter, tense. They all knew they had to put all their efforts into tracking Hydra, but when they couldn’t use their pent-up energy for anything better, they used it for training.

Nat had just thrown Tony for probably the hundredth time on the mat. He groaned and got up, massaging his shoulder.

“Why are we doing this again?”

“The suit can’t always protect you,” Natasha replied with a quirk of her eyebrow, and from over on the side of the gym Tony heard Clint call, “Again, again!”

“No, I’m good,” Tony said replied with a forced smile, and he heard Sam begin to laugh behind him. Natasha was smiling. They all needed a laugh. He turned to see Steve standing next to Sam, a small smile on his face. He had just come back from his own training with Sam and Bucky.

“Somebody pass me my water,” Tony said irritably, although he was smiling too. Bucky, who was next in line to spar with Natasha, walked up to him and handed him his water bottle.

“How’s Steve’s whole recovering-from-being-a-walking-disaster thing going?” Tony asked.

Bucky shrugged. “Better, I guess. You’ve been spending a lot of time with him too. What do you think?”

Tony looked away from Bucky’s piercing gaze. “Talk later, metal man.” He knocked his knuckles against Bucky’s prosthetic arm and Bucky followed him humorously with his eyes as he walked off the mat.

“You almost just got murdered,” Sam said to him, raising his eyebrows.

“Bucky’s a big fan,” Tony said with a wave of his hand. He looked at Steve. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Sam glanced at Steve. He was focused on Bucky and Nat, who were now in the middle of a grappling match at insane speeds.

“You’ll be back there in no time,” Sam said, elbowing him in the stomach. “Hey, what about that run? I think it’s overdue.”

Steve looked at him in surprise. “Okay.”

“Take care of him for me,” Tony called to Sam, and Steve waved goodbye to him with a smile.

\--

They started off slow, Sam jogging next to Steve as he warmed up.

“So how’s everything with Tony?” Sam asked and Steve stopped abruptly, clutching his stomach.

“Not fair, man, I can only do one thing at a time.” He grinned. “Things are good.”

“Yeah?”

Steve looked down. “It’s…different, but...”

Sam moved his head to look up into Steve’s face. “Okay…? What does that mean?”

Steve shrugged. Sam looked at him quizzically. 

“Don’t worry about it. We’re getting along fine.”

“Okay, just checking in. I know he means a lot to you. It can’t have been easy making up after that, is all I’m saying.”

“It wasn’t,” Steve said truthfully. “But he’s the same man I was friends with before. It was worth it. It would always be worth it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Steve breathed out. “Now are we gonna finish this run, or what?”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “If you call that running.”

“Oh, that’s how it is?”

“Oh, that’s how it is.” Sam grinned. “Come on, man, this is like my _only_ chance to beat you! I ain’t giving up on that.”

Steve hung his head, smiling. “Okay, let’s do this.”

It was the beginning of the fall now, with a hint of coolness in the air. But by the time Steve had finished he was sweating like it was 100 degrees. He collapsed at the end of their run, laughing as Sam literally ran in circles around him. 

Sam finally sat down, laughing. “Seriously, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve replied, waving Sam away as he offered the inhaler. “Enjoy this while it lasts.”

“Oh, I am.”

“I did better than last time though.”

“You sure did.”

They fell into silence, catching their breath. Sam reached over and put a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I just want to say, man, that I’m so glad you’re okay.” Steve looked up. “I didn’t wanna…bring it up before. I just wanted you to focus on getting better. But I want you to know, I-I couldn’t handle losing you. Not after Riley.” Sam dropped his hand, smiling through the pain written on his face.

“I’m so sorry, Sam,” Steve whispered, and pulled him into a hug.

Sam hugged him back hard. “I wouldn’t ever have gotten a chance to beat your ass at running if you’d died on me,” he murmured, tears stinging his eyes.

“Not a chance I’d let that happen.”

"Good. I'm gonna hold you to it."

\--

When they came back to Stark Tower everyone was visibly more relaxed. Wanda was slumped across one of the couches trying to kick Clint off the end where he was trying to fight for some space. Pietro, reduced to a sluggish speed after all the fighting that day, was watching with amusement. Rhodey had given up trying to interfere. Bucky and Natasha were busy discussing knife fighting techniques in excited, hushed tones in the corner, while Vision listened politely. Jan was taking something out of the oven and trying to use her oven mitts to fend off Carol, who was always on the lookout for a free meal. 

“Hey, kid,” Tony murmured, handing Wanda a smoothie.

“Thanks, Tony,” Wanda replied in surprise.

“Why don’t I get one?” Clint asked.

“You know why, you slacker,” Tony said in exasperation. He rolled his eyes, smiling. “Okay, there’s more in the kitchen.”

“Slacker? I trained a little bit,” Clint complained, but Natasha just looked over and shook her head.

“You trained the least out of everyone.”

“Hey, Cap,” Tony said, looking up as Steve and Sam came in. “Sam. How was the run?” He walked into the kitchen with them, poking Steve in the ribs and then leaning back on the counter.

Steve swatted at his hand and made a face in response to his question. “Sam’s never going to let me live it down.”

It was like old times--almost.

“Damn right,” Sam chirped, and Steve groaned at him. Tony noticed as he walked over to the refrigerator that he seemed stronger and was breathing easier, but even a short run had taken a lot out of him.

“Did you see Nat and Bucky?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Steve replied with raised eyebrows. “Bffs already. That’s gonna be terrifying.”

Sam and Steve both loaded up plates full of food. Steve hung back after Sam went to sit down, glancing at Tony. “You in the lab all day?” he asked quietly.

“After Nat was done dragging me across the mat." They both knew what he’d been doing in the lab, but they didn’t talk about it. With a poison that powerful, Hydra was even more of a dangerous enemy than before. Even a small dose had nearly killed Steve, and when it didn’t, put him out of commission for a long time. They’d all sleep easier once they had a lead.

Steve motioned with his head for him to follow. “Take a break then.”

“Maybe in a little while.”

Steve nodded. “Okay. If it gets too late though, I’m going to come and get you, and I’m more than capable of carrying you out of there by force if I need to.”

“Don’t strain yourself, big guy.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Then don’t make me.”

Tony tried not to smile. “Yes, Captain.”

Steve shook his head and smiled before walking away. Wanda came in, placing her glass on the counter quietly.

“Hey, Tony.”

“Hey. Sorry, we’re all out of smoothies thanks to Legolas and Capsicle.” He was turning to go when she put a light hand on his arm.

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “We never talked, after…”

“Nothing to talk about,” Tony replied.

“Tony, don’t you think there’s even a chance he loves you back?” she said quietly.

Tony whirled to her, his face tight, eyes wide with panic. “Keep your voice down. Jesus Christ.”

Wanda sent a dart of red around the room. “Soundproof. Better?”

“Better,” Tony agreed, with begrudging admiration. “But there’s still nothing I really need to say.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Wanda murmured, “I really didn’t mean to.”

Tony exhaled. “I know. I know. It’s not your fault.”

“Please, just think about it.”

Tony’s lips formed a thin line. “Really, there’s nothing to think about.”

He hated how much concern showed in Wanda's eyes.

\--

That night they went back to sleeping next to each other without touching, and Tony missed the solid feeling of Steve in his arms and the warmth. It had been a while since he slept that well.

He wasn’t surprised when he woke up in the middle of another nightmare, staring into the eyes of the Iron Man suit which he had somehow summoned in his sleep. It was just a matter of time before this shit happened again. _Shit shit shit._ His hands were shaking. His throat burned. He looked over at Steve in the darkness and then turned to get out of bed, the suit crumpling to the floor in pieces. He went to the bathroom and sat down next to the bathtub, finally letting tears spill down his face.

God, he was getting tired of this.

“Tony,” he heard a soft voice at the door.

He looked up through his tears to see Steve, alive and unharmed. Tony processed this slowly as if through a fog.

Steve stood frozen for a moment. Then he seemed to make a decision and came to Tony’s side. He knelt down between his legs on the floor and pulled him into his arms. Tony let out a shuddering sigh and dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder. Steve rubbed his back gently, his hand eventually settling around Tony’s shoulders, squeezing slightly. They sat like that for a while, until Steve’s voice finally brought Tony back to reality.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Tony opened his mouth to speak. “You were in the ice but we couldn't wake you up...” His voice cracked and he stopped abruptly. “I was just there watching—”

“I’m okay,” Steve whispered, and Tony started to cry again, almost in relief. This was the part that Pepper hadn’t been able to deal with, and Tony didn’t blame her, but it had hurt so much when she didn’t understand. Tony closed his eyes.

It was always variations on this theme--he was alive and the others weren't. He was alive wishing he wasn't alone. He was on a battlefield surrounded by dead teammates and friends and Steve was asking him why he didn't do more to save them. He was a kid and his parents were gone and oh, how could you mourn someone who had treated you like _shit_? The terror of the dream still gripped him as he tried to make himself aware of his surroundings--of Steve. He knew Steve knew plenty about survivor's guilt.

Steve lifted him effortlessly to his feet and Tony stumbled after him back to bed. He crumpled onto the mattress, rolled onto his side, drying his tears and looking away from Steve. Steve put a hand tentatively on his shoulder and Tony flinched.

“If you don’t want me to…hold you…”

“No, I…uh…” Tony crumpled towards Steve and Steve immediately pulled him closer. Tony felt something in him collapse at the sheer relief of having his arms around him again. Steve’s shirt front was totally soaked with tears now.

“Sorry,” Tony muttered.

Steve reached down to take Tony’s hand and placed it on the side of his waist, just below the hem of his shirt, holding it there and rubbing it back and forth.

“Can’t feel the difference, right?”

Tony let out a half-sob, half-laugh as he stroked Steve’s skin. There was no scar where the bullet had hit him, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the exact location was seared into his mind, he wouldn’t have known where to look. He let out a deep breath and wrapped his arm around the back of Steve’s waist. As if on request, Steve rolled over slightly on top of him, resting his chin on the top of Tony’s head. Tony nestled himself under Steve, his hands resting lightly against his broad back.

“Pull up the covers a little,” Steve said, and Tony lifted them up to the middle of Steve’s back.

“That’s good." Steve rested his face against Tony's hair, and Tony held onto the feeling of closeness like a lifeline as he was overcome with exhaustion.

\--

Tony woke up with a start, still wedged under Steve. Steve immediately moved backwards just a little to give him more room.

“You okay?”

Tony looked around, remembering where he was, and breathed out a sigh. Steve slowly pulled him back into his arms and Tony didn’t stop him.

“How did you sleep?” Steve asked quietly, and Tony tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question.

“Good,” he replied, closing his eyes against Steve’s chest. _Wonderful._

\--

Nat and Bucky were already in the kitchen.

“What’re you two doing up this early?” Natasha asked as they came in.

“Not that early, is it?” Steve asked. Bucky shrugged.

Steve was quiet over breakfast and Tony had a feeling it was for his benefit.

“Headed down to the lab?” Steve asked when Tony was done eating.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll come join you later.”

\--

Tony thought they’d go back to just lying side by side, except that later that night Steve wrapped Tony’s arms around him again. And the night after that, and the night after that.

The hunt for Red Skull continued.  They found a few Hydra outposts, but the raids brought back no new information. After receiving new intel that Natasha collected, Tony, Carol and Sam were somehow never fast enough to reach the new location in time before everything had been cleared out. Tony got immense satisfaction from how well the three of them worked as a team, but it was overshadowed by the frustration of chasing leads over and over and over and coming up empty-handed.

Carol was sure they’d find something soon, but Tony wondered if she was just being optimistic for his benefit. He felt like they were running in circles, all while Hydra was out there with a weapon that could kill Steve with one bullet. There was no way Tony could accept that.

Steve was still not quite ready for battle, and Tony saw how much it frustrated him to be kept back while they were in the field. But he also knew that Steve was unwilling to go into the field before he was ready. He wouldn’t do it, not when Hydra still had that poison. 

And even through all of that, Tony somehow slept every night. And he woke up next to Steve every morning.

\--

"When I got this team, this family…" Natasha turned to Tony. They were sitting on the side of the room, watching the rest of their team--because that's what they somehow were, after all this. "I'd never had something like that before." Her voice was quiet and thoughtful. "I didn't know what it could do for me, and how it would make me want to be better."

Tony didn't say anything, just looked at her, and gently bumped his shoulder into hers. 

She looked at him and smiled. "We've got to hold onto this with everything we've got."

\--

Tony’s arm was still under Steve’s waist. Steve's head was thrown back, his face turned to the side, exposing his neck. Tony’s eyes darted down to the hem of his shirt, which had ridden up over his stomach while he slept. His chest rose and fell slowly as he breathed.

Tony suddenly wondered what it would be like to really touch him. He wanted to slide his hand over that perfect chest, up to hold Steve’s jaw, and kiss the side of his neck. He wondered what kind of noise Steve would make. Tony swallowed hard. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. This was strictly off-limits. Especially when he was in Steve’s bed.

He stiffened involuntarily, trying to shake the thoughts away. Steve stirred in response, arching his back as he stretched. The sleepy moan he let out made Tony almost choke.

Steve opened his eyes. “Morning,” he grumbled.

“Morning, sleepy head,” Tony replied, wiggling his arm out from under Steve, but Steve turned over on top of him to stop him from moving.

“No,” he mumbled, “I'm still sleeping.”

Tony let out a short laugh and sighed as he relaxed under the pleasant weight of Steve’s body.

Tony still hadn’t told anyone about it. He’d gotten so close to telling Pepper. He hadn't seen her since she’d visited, and they only spoke briefly on the phone. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he never managed to say it. _I miss you. I miss you and I've fallen in love again and it's so wonderful and so painful and God, please help me, Pep._

\--

After going back and forth and back and forth on whether or not to do it, Tony finally sent Rhodey a text. It read, " _hey honey bear...uh, I've done something really stupid._   _Meet outside?"_

_"Where are you?"_

_"Roof."_

Rhodey appeared worried out of his mind and Tony had to placate him with reassurances this was about something that had nothing to do with being drunk, his health, his safety--

"Then what the fuck is it about, Tony?" Rhodey asked impatiently. He'd come up the stairway to see Tony standing there in his armor on the roof, a scene they both knew usually only happened when Tony was drunk.

"Uh, I…" Tony heard his voice shake and tapped the arc reactor, then shook his head.

"Have you poisoned yourself again?" Rhodey asked in such a concerned voice that it made Tony feel like shit for making him worry.

"I'm pointing to my heart, buddy, come _on_!"

Rhodey sighed and laughed. "Oh shit. Are you sure you don't mean your dick?"

Tony scoffed, secretly grateful for the moment of humor. He had to pull it together. "I haven't done anything stupid with my dick. Yet. Though some days he does seem to have a stick up his ass, so maybe it would--"

"Tony." Rhodey interrupted. "Who?"

"You know damn well who." Of course, he'd never talked to Rhodey about this in his life. He knew he was being unfair.

The concern on Rhodey’s face was mixed with exasperation and care. "You can't even say his name."

Tony felt his lips tremble. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.

"Why'd you even text me, man?"

"It was that or look into the bottom of a glass, so, you know. I mean Bucky took all my booze but I would go looking."

"Tony." Rhodey moved closer, placing a hand in Tony's shoulder. "I'm glad you texted me. Now will you tell me what this is about? Please? It's okay. You know you can tell me anything and I'm always on your side, no matter what. _Talk_ to me, man. Let me help."

Tony did, and Rhodey agreed it probably wasn't the best idea to sleep in his bed. He looked so sad and concerned that Tony wished he hadn't confessed any of it in the first place. But Rhodey was right, and Tony figured he should break it off with Steve.

He really meant to.

\--

They were tangled together like they usually were in the morning, and Tony was pleasantly warm, half in between sleeping and waking. He sighed, melting against Steve, hoping that it could last a little longer, he brushed his hand down to Steve’s waist, accidentally catching the bare skin below the hem of his shirt. Steve started under his touch. He looked down at Tony, sleepy, arms wrapped around him. Tony looked up at him in confusion.

Steve’s brow furrowed in pain, and after an agonizing moment he finally pulled away. “I can’t do this,” he whispered.

Steve moved away from him suddenly, and Tony sprang away as if he had been struck, getting out of bed and backing away.

“I’m sorry, I know I did something wrong—just tell me what it is—”

Steve got to his feet on the other side of the bed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “I just can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” Tony asked, feeling panic rising in his chest. “It’s me, right—”

“You can’t be here.”

“I—okay. I’ll go. I’m sorry.”

“ _Tony_.”

“But I thought you _wanted_ me to be here for you, Steve, I—”

“I did,” Steve interrupted. “I still do. I told you, I’m…better when I’m standing next to you too,” he added, but somehow it made him look even more broken.

Tony breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Okay,” he said. “Then what did I do? Tell me, baby, please—” So that was a thing now, Tony thought distantly, hating himself. Maybe Steve hadn’t noticed.

“Don’t call me that.” Well, there went that idea. “I’m not yours,” Steve said stiffly, and Tony was right back to panicking. He should never have let Steve pull him into his bed, not when he felt the way he did about him. There was nothing about that that wasn’t dishonest as fuck. 

“Not mine, okay, got it,” Tony breathed, and ran.

\--

He passed Wanda in the hall, and she stopped cold at the look on his face and took his hands.

"Tony!"

He shook his head, pulled away and walked past her. "I'll be fine, kiddo."

Might be true in time--it had taken time for him to be able to think about Pepper and not instantly want to get blackout drunk. It still hurt a bit even now to remember the time they had together, if he was being honest. Time could heal this thing over Steve...but right now all he could think was that sounded like such a lie.

He remembered sitting in front of Steve’s body after the shooting, and wondering if he’d ever have it in him to love like this again.

\--

Was he having a panic attack? He should have listened to Rhodey. He should have talked to Pepper. Of course he should have talked to Pepper! He should have never let himself get this close to Steve.

He forgot what he was doing, then remembered, he was texting Pepper. He fiddled with his phone. Before he could mentally yell at himself for not making up his mind, the door to his lab opened and he sprang up.

Steve looked pissed. Or at least be looked upset. Tony figured he'd find out which in a second. Did they have to do this _now_? Apparently they had to do this now. 

“Was it touching where the scar was--was that the thing that upset you, because I should have been more thoughtful, I shouldn't have touched—”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to touch me,” Steve almost snapped, then clenched his jaw and looked down.

“What?”

“It’s just too much,” Steve finished, looking up sadly at him. “Being next to you, but not really having you at all.” Tony looked at him in confusion. “I know it’s selfish. You need me too, and I-I want to be here for you. But I can’t do it anymore.” He looked away. “I can’t stand having you just out of my reach, and—

“What? I’m right here, if you need me for anything.”

Steve held his head in his hands. “I do need you, Tony, I need you—”

Tony took a step forward, spreading his arms. “Then you’ve got me—”

Steve looked up, his face hard. “No, I don’t,” he said coldly.

Tony took another step forward, about to speak. But it was Steve who broke the silence. 

“I love you,” Steve said, unable to look at him, his shoulders crumpled and his voice unsteady. He looked like he had been shattered. “I’ve loved you for years, before…”

"Hey..." Tony rushed forward and pulled Steve into his arms, his heart racing a thousand beats a minute. Steve stiffened, gripping Tony’s shoulder angrily with one hand as if to push him away, but unable to summon the strength.

“I said I can’t do this—”

“No, just listen to me, baby,” Tony interrupted, pulling back to look into his eyes. “The one thing I should have told you…” This wasn’t just his second chance with Steve, it was something more like his third or fourth, something he had thought he in no way deserved or could have hoped for. The expression on Steve’s face melted from resignation to confusion, then disbelief, and something that was almost tentative hope.

“I should have told you,” Tony repeated lamely, his voice catching in his throat, and then kissed Steve on the mouth.

And Steve kissed back. He kissed _back_. Tony held the side of his face and all of a sudden Steve was melting into him, wrapping his arms around him, breathing out a deep sigh like all he'd ever really wanted was to do this, and that was really not something Tony could process, not while his lips were glued to Steve's, and Steve was holding him like he really loved him and had loved him all this time. Tony felt like he needed to pinch himself or slap himself across the face. Hard. Because it was still too much to believe. He sighed into the kiss because he was going to damn well enjoy it even if he didn't understand it.

He must have looked starstruck when he pulled away because Steve smiled warmly, and Tony had never seen that particular smile on his face before, that sweet and open and filled with adoration and with peace.

"This whole time?"

Steve nodded.

"But, Jesus... _me_?" Tony asked quietly. "What were you thinking? I make you so mad, I-"

"You know that's not all we are,” Steve said, still smiling. “We're teammates, we're friends, we're...well, sometimes you infuriate me so much I want to kiss you just to see the shocked look on your face, sure."

"I look forward to that in our arguments."

"I'm being serious. We're more than that, and you're the one who showed me. Not just by saving my life, but my staying here, even when things were tough. Love...was something I thought I could move on from, but I don't want to let this go. I'm sick of missing my chance. Don't you trust me?"

Steve’s carefree smile was gone now. He looked _something_ behind the carefully schooled expression on his face and Tony realized it was scared. Of course he was scared. He was scared of the possibility that Tony would say, no, I don't believe you, I don't trust that you could love me after what you've done. 

"I do," Tony said immediately. He couldn't come up with anything to say after that so grabbed Steve's face and kissed him again, and really that was the most genius decision he could make.

\--

Because really, kissing Steve was every bit as incredible as Tony had thought it would be in those moments of weakness where he had allowed himself some dirty fantasies. Once Steve got him back in bed, Tony went right back to it. Steve's hands were in his hair and Tony's hands were on Steve's throat and chest and pushing up his shirt, and he didn't want to take his hands of Steve even for a second. They had lost so much time already. Steve cupped Tony's face in his hands, making a sound of relief like a groan into Tony's mouth that made Tony's dizzy with arousal.

"Fuck, Steve, we--" Tony panted, and looked down at Steve’s lips, still parted and slightly pink from kissing. 

"Talk later," Steve interrupted, his voice hoarse. "Done plenty of that for now."

Steve rolled over on top of him, and Tony could feel how hard he was, his erection pressing against Tony's groin. Tony slid hands down his back, and Steve arched against him and groaned at the touch.

"Sure we should get your heart rate up like this?"

"I can't think of a better way to make me feel better, can you?" Steve countered, and it sounded like a challenge.

"But are you sure you're well enough to-"

"Oh my God. I have more stamina than you on a bad day. Fuck you." 

The mixture of aggravation, affection and arousal in Steve's voice was enough to make Tony's head spin, and really, why was he trying to talk Steve _out_ if having sex with him again? Had he hit his head?

"Yeah okay. Good plan."

They kissed, they kissed, they kissed, and they rolled over each other and almost rolled off the bed, only barely avoiding it as Tony laughed stupidly against Steve's neck. 

"Stay put, Rogers." 

Steve smiled smugly underneath him. "Make me, then."

Of course Steve would talk shit in bed, what had he expected?

When Tony pushed his shirt up, Steve arched his back with a groan, head falling back on the pillows. Tony was kissing his neck in an instant, one hand massaging the muscles on Steve's chest, the other reaching down to palm him through his sweatpants. Steve made a low strangled sound, grinding up into Tony's hand. He yanked Tony's shirt up his back to his ears, and then Tony was fumbling momentarily to pull it off and over his head, and then they were right back to it, Steve's fingers pulling at the roots of Tony's hair as they kissed.

Each noise he made into Tony's mouth made Tony's insides twist. He fumbled with his own fly-- why had he fallen asleep in these pants, honest to God, could he wear something more comfortable to bed--

Once he has found something in Steve's nightstand to use as lubrication--which was a brand he didn't even recognize and looked terribly old fashioned--and slipped Steve's sweatpants down over his hips, and Steve had muttered something about how he couldn't catch anything so he shouldn't worry about protection--

Sure, they kept bumping their noses into each other, and kissed until they couldn’t breathe, and all Tony’s attempts at dirty talk failed because Steve kept telling him to stop talking. “You’re no fun,” Tony gasped, as he ground his cock against Steve’s, watching Steve’s abdomen tense as he breathed under the rhythm of Tony’s hand. Steve telling him to shut the fuck up as he lay there panting, gorgeous and messy, made Tony want to joke about something better to do with his mouth, but there would be plenty of time to blow Steve later-- _God_ , _just the thought_ \--and the friction between their bodies felt too incredible to stop. Steve pulled Tony down into another deep, wonderful kiss and then rolled his head back and gasped his name as he came between their stomachs. Tony didn’t last after that, not when he was looking down at Steve looking like this. Not when Steve was _looking_ at him like this.

\--

After some time they got themselves cleaned up and went back to necking, which was really even hotter than Tony could have imagined with the way Steve's hair was messed up and his clothes were rumpled from sex, his sweatpants sitting almost obscenely low on his hips.

And that’s when Sam opened the door.

Normally Tony would let whoever was intruding deal with the embarrassment of seeing him in bed with someone, man or woman—but there was something about how secretive he’d been about his feelings for Steve, even about sleeping in his room—that made Tony leap for his shirt and try to destroy any possible evidence of what they’d been doing.

Which, of course, was impossible, Tony realized, as Steve, dazed, finally managed to pull his too-tight shirt back down over his chest.

“Bucky’s making pancakes,” Sam said, eyes wide. He looked down. “Okay, I’m just gonna…” He closed the door.

Steve collapsed on his back, groaning and laughing. “That’s not…how I wanted that to go.”

Tony rested his head against Steve’s chest. “Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been Pepper."

\--

“Breakfast.” Tony pulled on his shirt, still flustered.

“ _Wait_ ,” Steve said and Tony turned immediately.

Steve’s lips were parted, and he was looking down at Tony’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Tony muttered, and Steve pulled him down by his collar of his shirt for another kiss. It was slow this time, unhurried. Steve cupped the back of his head, still running his fingers through Tony’s hair after they pulled apart.

“I love you, I love you so much,” Tony muttered incoherently against Steve’s neck, and he felt Steve’s arms tighten around him. 

"I love you too. Tony. I love you."

It still sounded so strange to hear Steve say that. And he said it so easily, so surely, like it was just a fact of life that Tony, almost despite his efforts to pick this apart and find some flaw and some plausible deniability, couldn't help but believe him. He was so screwed.

Tony sat up abruptly. "Breakfast. Sam. We should--"

Steve smiled, narrowing his eyes. "Go another round?"

Breakfast could wait.

\--

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Tony asked, the faceplate of the Iron Man suit still up.

“Bring it on,” Steve replied with all of his old cockiness, raising his fists.

Tony snapped the faceplate closed. He could feel his teammates’ eyes on him. The last time they’d seen Tony and Steve fighting, it hadn’t been anything like this.

Steve charged at him and Tony raised his repulsors. Steve moved quickly out of the way, pushing him to the ground. Tony rolled out of the way and Steve’s fist struck the floor where he had lain.

Steve was quicker and stronger than he had been in weeks. It wasn’t long before Tony was out of breath. A few beads of sweat dripped down Steve’s forehead, but Tony was sweating hard. Tony shoved himself back from Steve to buy a moment of time, but then dropped his hands, opening the faceplate in defeat. But he wasn’t scared, not of Steve hurting him, not ever again.

“Getting tired, old man?”

“I could do this all day,” Steve replied, grinning as he took off his helmet, leaving his hair an unruly mess.

“Well I for one don’t want to do this all day. I yield.”

Steve reached out a hand and Tony took it. “Deal.” He pulled Tony into a hug and Tony distantly heard the other Avengers cheering behind them. Then Steve pressed a kiss to his cheek, and Tony blushed hard, glancing over to see Rhodey grinning, and behind him, Natasha, Sam and Bucky exchanging pleased glances. Carol winked and gave him two thumbs up. Wanda was beaming at him.

\--

"What does the Time Stone have to do with finding Hydra?" Tony asked, trailing after Carol on the way to the briefing room.

Carol glanced at him, her previous levity gone. Furys message to her had just come in moments before. "Trust me, you're going to want to hear this."

The rest of the Avengers filed into the room, and Tony waited by the door for Steve. When he appeared, he took Tony's hand and squeezed it. "Whatever this is, we'll deal with it together."

Tony hummed his acknowledgement. When he sat down, Steve rested his hand on Tony's shoulder like it was suddenly the most ordinary thing in the world, but that simple gesture made Tony's stomach turn over. He reached up to rest his hand over Steve's and held it there.

"Alright, listen up, knuckleheads," Carol began, "this is the intel Fury sent me. He's been tracking the Time Stone for some months now. Before that, it's location was unknown for decades. Recently he tracked it's signature to this location in Virginia." She pointed to the screen. "Seemed to be an abandoned building. Or it did until they got this." She flipped to the next slide.

The photo was a little fuzzy, but the man in it was unmistakable--with gaunt, red skin and hollow eyes. The Time Stone glowed green on his finger.

Steve's hand tightened Tony's shoulder. "That's him." 

Tony could hear an angry edge to Steve's voice. He squeezed Steve's hand briefly before Steve strode to the front of the room.

Steve turned and paced back, glancing at Carol. "When's the soonest we can move?"

"I'd say anytime you're ready. It'll be good to have you back in action."

"Hey, let's at least take some time to make a plan there first, pal," Bucky added. "He has an Infinity Stone after all. Which is terrible news by the way. And it explains how the fuck he’s still alive."

Steve snorted. "I know, I know. I was thinking we'd discuss a battle plan tonight and move out in the morning. I know it's fast but this may be our only chance. We can't waste it."

"I agree, we can't let him get away. But what about the poison?" Wanda asked. "Shouldn't we take precautions to protect you from being exposed to it again?"

"About that," Tony added, "Helen's been sending me stronger antidotes as she develops them. The latest should reverse the effects of the poison entirely if injected within an hour. I swear that woman works magic. Y'know, sciencey magic."

"Do we know why Red Skull is hanging out in Virginia?" Sam asked. "Because I grew up there. Feels a bit personal, you know?"

"Seems like a good place to lay low," Steve mused. "Haven't been able to locate him until now, and we've been looking. Reduced Avengers presence in the area too after what happened to SHIELD, I'd guess."

"I'm assuming we all want to go fight Red Skull, but we're going to need a team that can move quickly in and out, and we can't leave this place undefended," Natasha pointed out. "We can't all be part of this one. Steve and Bucky, you have a personal stake in this. Same with Wanda and Pietro. Who else?"

"I'm sure as hell not sitting this one out," Sam said. "And I assume you aren't either."

Natasha smiled and shook her head in agreement.

Steve nodded at both of them with gratefulness. Then he glanced to Tony, almost shyly, across the room. "Our first mission together since...well, since we stopped being a team. What do you say?"

Tony got giddily to his feet and came to stand by Steve's side. "I could never say no to you, Cap. You know that. I've been just waiting to see you back in action."

"It'll be good to have you." The soft warm smile Steve gave Tony was not lost on him, and even though it only lasted a moment, the warmth it sent through Tony lasted a _lot_ longer than that. 

At a point, Tony had never thought he'd get the chance to fight by Steve's side again. And here they were.

Steve turned and surveyed the rest of the Avengers. "I know we're all anxious to get out and kick some Nazi ass, but are you guys gonna be okay sitting this one out?"

"This is your fight," Carol replied. "You deserve this win. We'll hold down the fort till you guys get back."

\--

The day was quickly becoming night, and they spent the rest of it discussing a hundred parts to their plan--what was the best way to fight someone wielding an Infinity Stone? Did they have any way of knowing how Red Skull had gained possession of the Stone? How many men could they expect to confront? It was almost impossible to estimate their number given their limited intel, so they focused their energies instead on Carol's debriefing on Infinity Stones and the problems they'd be likely to face from someone wielding one. 

Eventually Carol sent them all to bed. "You're heading out in the early morning. I suggest you all get a few hours of sleep."

Tony got to his feet and waited for Steve at the door. He defended himself against a jab in the ribs from Rhodey and pretended to roll his eyes in annoyance at Rhodey's wink. He should have known Rhodey would tease him just like back in college, but who was he kidding--it made him happy.

When he and Steve were finally alone Tony leaned in and kissed his cheek, pulling away slowly and watching the smile spread on Steve's face.

He asked quietly, "How you feeling, Cap?"

Steve shrugged, and smiled brighter, and there was something hard and fearless in his eyes. Tony thought he looked more like his old self than he had in a long while. "Like we finally have a lead. I'm ready to put an end to this."

Tony reached up and rested a hand on Steve's shoulder, giving it a bit of a rub. "Sounds good to me. We're a team again, and you know there's nothing we can't do when we're working together." 

Sreve raised his eyebrows and breathed out, as if letting a huge weight off his shoulders. "I know."

"Feel like getting some sleep?"

Steve looked sideways at Tony. Slyly. "Something tells me that's not happening tonight."

\--

They boarded the quinjet in the dark hours before dawn, and Tony felt too wired for the battle ahead to feel any exhaustion, too distracted by memories of last night to feel properly nervous.

It turned out Steve was every bit as bossy in bed as he was outside of it. When they'd made it back into bed he had wrapped his legs tight around Tony's waist, leaned close to his ear, his voice rough, and said, " _Fuck me. Captain's orders_." So Tony had, and none of his dirtiest fantasies had lived up to it, not even close. Not with Steve gasping in his ear, arching back, groaning his name so loud Tony felt it like a warm vibration in his chest, his leg hooked over Tony's shoulder. Not when they kissed and panted against each other's mouths with each thrust of Tony's hips, and Steve put his hand over Tony's heart and Tony thought _it's yours, yours,_ said " _yours, Steve_ ," and watched Steve's lips, wet from kissing, murmur something like an incoherent I love you. 

He hadn't had sex so good in...

"Tony, he _llo_ ," Natasha murmured, waving a hand in his face.

"Wh--huh, yeah," Tony managed. He was still picturing Steve naked and flushed and smiling at him, only hours before, in Steve's bed.

In _their_ bed.

Tony turned abruptly to Natasha. "Yeah?"

"You focused?"

"Very. Focused. Yup."

"Landing shortly guys, hold onto something," Sam warned from the pilot's seat.

Tony glanced over at Steve discussing something with Bucky. Wanda and Pietro were standing together, Wanda fiddling with a bit of red magic. Natasha was idly toying with one of her knives.

Tony was worried about the battle ahead, sure But he wasn't too blind to see the real battle had been just getting to this point where they were all willing to be a team again. Where he and Steve were willing to be a team. More than that--to open their hearts to each other. He felt lighter, calmer than he had in a god-damned eternity. Like they were almost home.

\--

After leaving the quinjet camouflaged, it was a short hike through the woods to the target location. Natasha was in the lead, taking them in the direction of the huge rundown sprawling building where they would find Red Skull.

When they stopped in the cover of some trees in view of the building, Tony came up at Steve's side.

"This is it."

Steve nodded, and smiled grimly.

"Kiss for good luck?"

Tony watched Steve's expression close off in a way Tony hadn't seen in a long time, and it made his heart ache with the awful familiarity.

"Were not saying goodbye. Kiss me after the battle."

Tony got it. He did. But despite his best efforts not to, he must have looked hurt, because Steve added more gently, "I'll see you soon, and I'll want that kiss when I do. Stay safe."

Tony nodded wordlessly.

\--

They entered the building without difficulty, Natasha once more in the lead, Steve behind her. It seemed deserted--dark, quiet, but for their soft footsteps muffled on the floor.

"North wing," Sam said suddenly. "I'm picking up something on the infrared."

"How many men?" Bucky asked.

Tony's visuals confirmed the same thing. "Looks like twenty or so, some stationed in front of a room, some inside, others are patrolling the area around it."

"Right," Steve said, "we want to pick as many of them off as possible, but quick enough and quietly enough that Red Skull isn't alerted in time to make an escape."

Wanda smiled as her eyes began to glow. "My brother and I have got this." 

\--

The first contact they had with Hydra went swiftly. Wanda grabbed a handful of men with a lasso of red magic and smashed them into the wall, reaching around the entire area to trap even the sound of the impact from escaping. Pietro was a blur around the corner. Natasha quickly advanced into the next corridor, motioning them to follow.

"Shit, we've been made," Bucky whispered from behind Tony. 

Tony whirled to see Bucky elbowing a guy in the face, and then knocking him out with a quick strike of the end of his gun. But the noise of the man's yell was drawing more attention.

"Room's right up ahead," Sam pointed out. "I say we throw caution to the wind."

"Right. I don't want him getting away," Steve gritted between his teeth. 

They rounded the corner. Steve smashed the guard stationed at the door with his shield and kicked down the old wooden planks with a crash.

Tony heard the footsteps of more men coming as they entered the room. He held back, covering the exit. They were about to be surrounded, because sure enough they had found the man they were looking for.

It was a large room with concrete walls, boxes of what seemed to be weapons stacked along the sides. In the center of the room was a chair, the man in it unmistakable. Red Skull rose to his feet. A flash of anger and surprise darted across his face. 

"Captain America. Feeling better after the poison, I see," he hissed. "I had hoped that making it with the power of an Infinity Stone would defeat you once and for all."

Jesus. No wonder the poison had been powerful. Tony was in awe of Steve's recovery and Helen's antidote all over again.

"No such luck," Steve spat and threw his shield hard.

It ricocheted off a pulse of green magic bright enough they had to shield their eyes.

"Not so fast, Captain," Red Skull mocked, lifting his hand where the Stone glowed on his finger. "I'm stronger than when last we fought."

"Oh, shut up." The second pass of Steve's shield did nothing, but Tony suspected it was only intended as a distraction. As Red Skull deflected it, Pietro came from the side in a blur.

Red Skull whirled and enveloped Pietro in the green magic of the Time Stone. Wanda flew towards them, intercepting with her own magic as they watched Pietro slow and slow until he was frozen in the Time Stone's green light.

Wanda snarled, finally separating Pietro from Red Skull in the next instant. As Bucky, Steve, Natasha and Sam converged on Red Skull, Wanda landed by Pietro.

Tony was at her side in a moment. "How is he?" Tony breathed.

"He's...okay I think," Wanda breathed, shaken, looking into Pietro's panicked, frozen eyes. "But it's like Red Skull just _stopped_ him. Or slowed him down as much as he could. Reversed how he manipulates time."

"You can't stay here to protect him," Tony insisted, "you're our big guns. _Go_." 

Pietro was struggling against the magic that had hit him, but it looked like he was trapped under an immense weight. He had moved his finger maybe a few inches in the time they'd been talking.

"Go!" Tony repeated. "I'm watching him."

"Skull is paying for this," Wanda breathed out in anger, turned and flew off to join the battle.

\--

Red Skull evaded Wanda's magic again and again, easily deflecting Bucky and Sam's gunfire and the occasional blast from Tony’s repulsors as he guarded Pietro. Pietro was sweating and shaking with effort. He had only managed to move a few feet backwards. It would be hard to win the battle when they were fighting on the defensive, especially as more Hydra agents joined the fight. Part of the wall had come down, crushing a few men, but there were more coming to replace them.

Natasha fought back to back with Tony. "He's trying to get Bucky," she muttered. "Look at how he's fighting, moving constantly away from Wanda in Bucky's direction."

"Oh fuck. Regroup. _STEVE_."

Steve joined them, slamming another Hydra agent away with his shield, and Bucky knelt in cover near them, sniping off a man climbing over the rubble.

"Bucky, we don't want you getting hit with the Stone," Natasha said, grimacing as she threw her opponent to Steve, who punched him with his shield. "After Pietro, we don't know what it could do."

Bucky's hand went white on the trigger of his gun. "There's no way he could reactivate me."

"We're not taking any chances," Steve replied grimly. No one said the unspoken thing-- if the Infinity Stone could alter reality by manipulating time around Pietro, it could definitely return Bucky to an earlier state. "I'm covering you, pal. No arguments."

"Alright, I'm not arguing," Bucky grumbled.

"I want this fight over as fast as possible," Wanda said, and rose in the air, flying towards Red Skull. "Steve, Tony, protect Bucky and my brother. Sam, Natasha, with me."

Before they split ways again, Tony grabbed Steve's shoulder. "Wait--if the Stone can mess with time like this, what's to say if Red Skull hit you with the it he couldn't reverse your healing, or--"

Steve grabbed him and shielded from rubble falling as Red Skull demolished the rest of the wall behind them. The building shuddered on its foundations.

"Saved your ass," Steve said with a smirk. "Now you can worry about saving mine."

Tony watched Steve run off, keeping himself in between Red Skull and Bucky. Tony blinked and refocused on the battle, because really the suit did _wonders_ for Steve's ass but this was not the time to think about that.

\--

Pietro could move again, slowly, which meant he was as good as someone with no mutations who was also winded on top of that. He and Tony covered the exit. Any Hydra agent in the building had been alerted to the fighting by now, and it was definitely over twenty men--closer to forty that they had engaged so far.

"How do you fight all the time without powers?" Pietro gasped as he punched someone in the face with a huge effort. "This _sucks!"_

"Hey," Tony said with a laugh. "I do alright."

He glanced aside to where Wanda's red magic roared with power, pushing against the green of the Time Stone. She was grimacing with effort, but she was also standing in the face of an entire Infinity Stone and giving back everything she got. The room buzzed with electricity and tension, the walls vibrating. The battle had stretched on too long.

Red Skull suddenly feinted to the side and flew around Wanda, channeling magic towards Bucky in a blinding stream. Steve only barely managed to deflect it with his shield--he was sent flying with the force of the impact. Wanda threw Red Skull violently aside with her magic at the last minute.

"We're finishing this now," she hissed. "We have to take the Stone."

Tony grinned. You didn't want to piss off Wanda. "Got any ideas?"

Natasha said through the comms, "Cover me. Sam, be ready."

Tony blasted a Hydra agent who whose gun was trained on Natasha as she scaled up the far wall. Pietro narrowly managed to duck a man swinging at his head before Tony blasted the man too.

"Natasha, you're clear," Tony said though the comms.

Sam soared in front of Red Skull, keeping Skull's eyes off Natasha as Wanda held him with her magic. Natasha swug herself into position and immediately dropped from the ceiling onto Red Skull's shoulders, wrapping a cord around his neck. 

"Now!" Steve yelled, and threw the shield to Sam.

Sam swooped down in a blur. Red Skull struggled between Wanda's magic and Natasha's chokehold, then finally shot a beam of magic at Sam--it deflected off the shield. In one huge arc, Sam sliced with the blades on his wing clear through Red Skull's outstretched arm. The severed arm--and the Time Stone upon it's finger--fell to the floor.

The Time Stone's green aura was wrapped in Wanda's red magic in an instant, and Red Skull's severed arm turned to dust. Natasha flipped off Red Skull's back and tied his remaining hand with a cord, kicking him onto his knees.

Tony felt the power on his suit crackle and go out--he'd been hit with an EMP. He whirled and elbowed his opponent in the face the good old-fashioned way as he tried to reboot power. That was just annoying.

With an eye on Pietro, he said through the comms, "Wanda, I want you to hold onto the Stone. In case we get attacked again, you’re the strongest. Room's clear."

He saw her nod from across the room. She looked at Red Skull and came to rest on the floor in front of him. "We don't have to fear you anymore." With a strand of magic, she lifted the Time Stone. "Time caught up with you at last."

Red Skull lunged at her, and Natasha yanked him back. Bucky nudged him roughly with his gun. "Make another move and I shoot you. You tried to kill my best friend."

Standing between Bucky and Steve, Sam smiled, his eyes hard. "What he said."

"Where were you hiding, Captain?" Red Skull hissed, whirling to Steve as Natasha held him in place. "We looked everywhere."

"He was with his team," Tony called across the room, rolling his eyes. "Ever think of that?" He did a scan of the rest of the building just in case, but infrared was negative. It seemed they had drawn all the attention they'd be getting--for now. He didn't want to take chances. Pietro doubled over and breathed like he'd just run ten miles.

"Impossible!" Red Skull snapped. "The Avengers were divided, split into factions, weakened--the perfect time to strike!"

Sam looked thoroughly unimpressed. "I guess even divided we were more than a match for a piece of shit like you, huh."

Red Skull laughed quietly. "You may think you've won, but there are more like me. Cut off one head and many more replace it. We will bring order to a chaotic world."

"As long as the Avengers exist, I wouldn't be too sure of that. You don't scare me. You already tried killing me, and you failed," Steve said. Tony thought he sounded beyond pissed off that Red Skull was still alive and talking.

"You will see--"

"Your kind don't belong in this time or _any_ time," Steve interrupted. "Wanda was right: time’s caught up with you.” With that, he punched Red Skull hard across the face.

The last of the Time Stone's energy faded from him, withering his body until it fell apart and became smoke. Steve watched the smoke dissipate with a hard look on his face, then glanced sideways at Bucky. Bucky clasped his shoulder and breathed out a sigh. 

\--

After Tony was satisfied that the building was empty and that they could make a safe exit, and that Pietro wasn't going to pass out, he picked his way across the ruined floor of the building as quickly as he could. Steve dropped is shield and pulled him into his arms and for a while they just held each other. Even through the armor it felt incredible. The dust was still settling around them.

"God, I've never wanted to kiss you as badly as I did just now," Tony muttered, leaning back, feeling giddy with adrenaline. "Who knew punching undead Nazis into smithereens made you look this _hot_."

There was dirt on Steve's helmet and face, and a satisfied smirk on his lips. He grabbed Tony's face and kissed him--kissed him hard like they were reuniting after a long separation and not just a battle, kissed him like they'd won, and they'd done it together.

They pulled apart, and Tony had to take a deep breath to recover. "I could get used to this. After a battle. Calms my nerves."

Steve raised an eyebrow, and he looked as sure of himself as ever. "You will."

He left the battlefield with his usual swagger, heading the others towards the quinjet, motioning to Tony to hurry up. Sam had brought the quinjet closer to the building remotely, and it waited outside for them to board. Tony nodded at Steve, signaling he'd be right there.

Wanda hung back with him as they stepped out of the building.

"Tony?"

He looked at her and sighed. "Last time all of us we were on a battlefield together...well, you know."

It was strange to remember. So much had changed since then, for all of them, and it made him think if they could get through this they could get through anything. This first mission as a team was proof of what they'd rebuilt since the end of their Civil War. Natasha's words echoed in his mind: we've got to hold onto this with everything we've got.

Tony looked around at the destruction. Most of the building was still intact after the battle for all the damage. 

"One more thing, could you do me a favor?"

"Anything."

"Turn this place into a rubble heap. I feel like otherwise we're all gonna have nightmares about it."

"With pleasure."

Tony watched Wanda's eyes glow scarlet. She gritted her teeth and _pulled,_ and with a deafening rumble the building before them collapsed into dust. 

"Jesus _Christ_ you're powerful. And it looks like you barely broke a sweat. I owe you one. Big-time."

"No you don't, Tony," Wanda replied. He followed her gaze to Pietro, who was just getting into the quinjet as they approached.

Wordlessly, Tony put an arm over her shoulders and pecked a kiss onto her hair.

"I'm piloting," Wanda added. "Taking over for Sam. You get in the back with Steve and make out like high schoolers."

Tony regarded her seriously. "Have I mentioned you're my favorite?"

\--

Tony sent a quick text to Thor on the off chance he's respond, though they hadn't heard from him in months. _Have infinity stone- any idea what we do with it?_

His phone buzzed seconds later as he was climbing into the back of the jet-- it was a too-close picture of Thor smiling, behind him a chaotic battle, and the caption " _bit busy but see u soon keep stone safe till I get there xox"_

Tony thought that might be Loki- _-Loki?_ \--and a woman on the back of a winged horse in the background. He shook his head in amazement, putting his phone away as he sat down next to Steve. 

Steve turned towards him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Gotta find a way to take this armor off you faster."

Tony raised his eyebrows and leaned in to whisper in Steve's ear, "You're not tired after that battle? Because I could rip that uniform off you right now. See if we can top last night if that's even possible."

"You know I like a challenge."

"You think we can work out some of our issues in bed instead of in arguments? Might do us good."

Steve's eyes slowly wandered over Tony's armor. "I hope not too many. It's fun when it's a little rough." Then, in a low voice that made shivers run up Tony’s spine, "Where's that kiss you promised me? I gave you mine."

Tony grabbed his face and kissed him, and this was never not going to do things to him, the way Steve pressed as close as he could, urgently, tilting his head, holding the back of Tony’s head in his hand as he kissed him with everything, open-mouthed and hungry, only pulling away regretfully to breathe.

One long deep kiss and Tony was in a place where all he could think about was Steve's lips inches from his own. Steve breathed deeply and rested his forehead against Tony’s. Tony could stay in this moment forever, thumb brushing across Steve’s cheek.

As reality slowly came back to him, he remembered to ask, “Did you mean what you said to Red Skull? About not being afraid?"

Steve shrugged and gave that buoyant relaxed smile. "I think...I think I did.” He was silent for a moment. “I'll always be afraid of losing this life we've made. But afraid of that poison? Not anymore. Not with an antidote. It helps that Red Skull is dead. I'm not gonna lie, it felt _really_ good to punch him in the face. And now he's gone and it helps me put another piece of my past to rest." He sighed.  "I'm not looking back. If I’m going to be honest...it feels like I'm just getting started."

"It feels good to win."

"Damn right," Steve replied with a smile, cupping the side of Tony's face in his hand. Tony was mesmerized, watching Steve look down and brush his thumb over the side of Tony's beard. Steve looked so relaxed and happy it made Tony forget how bruised and tired he felt. Instead, he felt butterflies, and like his heart was about ready to leap right out of his chest.

Steve added, "But it feels a lot better to do it together."

They headed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like that I implied that Tony is going to develop a quicker way to get out of and into his armor specifically because Steve wants to fuck him. I mean, IT SEEMS LEGIT


	3. Epilogue

_Two years later_

_\--_

_Dear Helen,_

_It's kind of you to check in on an old patient. I’m doing well--we all are. Cleaned up a bit of an alien invasion last week but it as nothing we couldn’t handle._

_I really hope you’ll come to my birthday party next week. We'd love to see you. I can’t guarantee a supervillain won’t crash the party, but I can guarantee you’ll have fun. Thor will be there, but I think he’s bringing a Valkyrie as his date. But the Mighty Thor will be there too._

_Yours,_

_Steve Rogers_

_P.S. This is still my old fashioned way of trying to repay you, but I hope you’ll let that slide. She’s an astrophysicist, you’re both pioneers in STEM...I just thought you’d like to meet her. If you want to impress her just tell her about the time you brought back a 90 year old gunshot victim who had no heartbeat or brain function._

_I hope I’ll see you there._

Helen tapped her keyboard nervously, hit reply, and then hesitated. In a new tab she typed a search for Jane Foster.

_\--_

Tony started typing a text to Steve before he headed out. _I hope you take a break from training and catch up with Thor and Bruce. Out until late tonight. Waiting for my kiss when I get back._

He paused, glancing up from his phone as he passed Wanda in the hall.

“Are you going to show them the plans?” she asked, grinning.

“Hell yes.”

Wanda squeezed his shoulder. “Good. See you.”

Tony winked at her and finished his message to Steve with _I love you,_ then hit send, unable to stop the spring in his step as he walked to the door. It would have seemed impossible to confess those words years ago, but now it was second nature, and his heart felt so much lighter for it. They had earned this. No more secrets.

Well…just the one.

Tony flipped through a few different designs he'd been working on. A text from Rhodey read _hurry up man! Carol and I want to see the ring already!_ Tony activated his armor from his wristwatch, his faceplate snapping down in seconds.

This life would never be simple, but that wasn’t why any of them had chosen it. There would always be the risk of not making it back in one piece. There would always be times they didn't agree and had to figure out what to do next. They would always have those late nights, where they were all bone tired and hurting like crazy but they had to keep fighting, where they could only win if they all stood together. Earth’s mightiest heroes. Maybe it shouldn’t work, but it did. Somewhere along the line they had become stronger than the things that divided them.

He felt light enough to fly before he even blasted off. 

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to know what you thought ;)


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